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Revision as of 20:01, 10 July 2006

The Lumber Cartel was a conspiracy theory, first promulgated either by Sanford Wallace himself, or by one of his employees, and subsequently popularized on USENET, that was alleged to back anti-spammers.

In November of 1997, a participant on news.admin.net-abuse.email discovered an essay on Wallace's corporate website, and posted its contents to the newsgroup. The essay described a conspiracy theory:

The original anti-spammer was in truth a major spammer just one day before two major lumber companies deposited a total of $275,000 into his account. He instantly stopped spamming and began what is now the biggest anti-spam ring on the Internet.

The reasoning was that these companies first destroy forests and make paper out of them, which is in turn used to send bulk mail. Since sending e-mail spam doesn't use paper at all, the essay argued, the lumber companies would want to stop it before it would surpass paper-based bulk mailing, and consequently only those in the pay of the lumber companies would be anti-spam.

Anti-spammers, of course, were quick to point out that this reasoning is far from the truth. There are many reasons why e-mail spam was, and continues to be, a threat to the Internet, and why people continue to fight spam either in their spare time or professionally. In addition, in recent decades only newsprint paper (which is used to print newspapers) is being made out of pulpwood (which is, also, very far from lumber), other fine papers (like the kind used to print glossy advertisements and brochures) are made out of cotton rags. It is thus unlikely that the any lumber or tree-harvesting industry would benefit from any change from junk mailing. Furthermore, lumber companies themselves have little to do with paper companies, and bulk mail constitutes only a small part of total paper use.

Gatherings of anti-spammers on Usenet began to ridicule proponents of this theory, and many participants in news.admin.net-abuse.email chose to dub themselves as members of "the Lumber Cartel" in their signatures, followed immediately by the acronymic disclaimer "TINLC" (There Is No Lumber Cartel), reminiscent of the There Is No Cabal catchphrase.

References and external links

• Usenet Archives
• "Possible Anti-Spam Conspiracy Uncovered" (alternate link) - article posted by "Vladimir" to news.admin.net-abuse.email on 1997-11-14
• Web site of "The Lumber Cartel"; Archived copy from 2001 available through The Internet Archive.
• The Jargon File: "Lumber Cartel"
• Lumber Cartel in Ursine's Jargon Wiki
• Archives of a mailing list from 1998, with Lumber Cartel signature blocks

Web sites dedicated to the Lumber Cartel

• The Lumber Cartel
• The Lumber Cartel, Roosevelt National Forest Chapter (backup copy)
• The Lumber Cartel, local 42 (Canadian branch)

• E-mail
• Spamming
• Internet culture
• Usenet
• Hoaxes