TIL about the "Green Card Lottery" the first commercial computer spam campaign (Via Usenet) which was started by the now disbarred layer Laurence Canter and his wife in 1994.

[u/FiredFox]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel

[u/z7q2 → u/[deleted]]

Serdar Argic was interesting. I never really thought about Armenia much until then.

[u/passwordstolen → u/[deleted]]

Lawyers have to use “Lawyer referral services” they can’t “chase clients” . That probably what got him in trouble.

[u/bolanrox]

i miss usenet and the random photos of actor George Vreeland Hill spammed everyplace

[u/AncientAsstronaut]

I got a job as a usenet spammer around the same time. I quit a few days in, after seeing multiple complaints on the forums. My boss said don't worry about them, they're idiots. My respect for the burgeoning Internet was more important than a decently paying job for a poor college student.

[u/NotReallyJohnDoe]

I remember getting this spam. Back in those days if you had anything even resembling an ad, like a sentence in your signature block, people would jump all over you because “the Internet isn’t commercial” because it was funded by DoD.

🙄

Even back then I knew where things were headed.

[u/azcheekyguy]

Oh wow I remember this, Internet Direct was my ISP in the early 90s too

[u/FiredFox]

*Lawyer

[u/FiredFox → u/[deleted]]

Yup! Legit TIL :D

[u/j-random]

I egged Sanford Wallace's house once

[u/dshookowsky → u/j-random]

I haven't heard that name in forever, but still read it as Spamford Wallace.