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Anti-spam:
The New Revolution
In our maiden issue last month, we kicked-off by urging
our readers to take a stand against spam. These days,
we see more and more actions from the IT sector and
from governments across the globe. The US government
in particular is active when it comes to anti-spam legislation,
though it has yet to reach the federal level. In Europe,
the French and British governments are starting their
own crackdowns. Asia, on the other hand, is slower to
take up the fight. This is evident with Singapore's
apparent apathy towards the spam problem.
In this issue, you will see a glimpse of the difficulties
faced by various sectors and entities in their fight
against spam.
Bottomline? From the articles that follow, it’s
clear that the crusade against spam is making progress.
And that’s good news.
Spam
As A Criminal Offense
To
date, about 26 states in the US have adopted some form
of anti-spam legislation. While most of these laws simply
require proper identification of sender and subject
and a valid opt-out link, California is seeking ways
to make sending spam a criminal offense.
Any
violations of existing Californian anti-spam law
merely result in a misdemeanor and a fine of $1,000.
If State Senator Debra Bowen’s proposed
bill is passed, spammers face a maximum fine of
$500 per spam sent.
The
existing anti-spam law, also written and introduced
by Sen. Bowen in 1998, was mostly ignored and
up to
now, has had only one case based on it. |
Sen.
Debra Bowen |
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“Do
Not Spam” List
Other
states have adopted an alternate approach to dealing
with spam. Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers has called
for a “Do Not Spam” list similar to the
existing “No-Call” list protecting consumers
from telemarketers. Once an e-mail address has been
added to the list, spam senders can no longer send advertising
e-mail to that address without risking a $25,000 fine.
Other
states are considering similar “Do Not Spam”
lists to help combat spam.
Anti-spam
industry experts say that a “Do Not Spam”
list could probably result in more and worse spam than
before. Spammers will most certainly be attracted to
a list of valid addresses they can spam. Criminal liability
has never been a deterrent for dedicated spammers.
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Joining
The Front Line
With
spam rapidly gaining infamy in the online community,
the hue and
cry has spurred many state-level legislators to look
into regulating spam
in their respective areas.
The
states of Texas, Indiana and Vermont are among the states
that are considering adopting some form of anti-spam
legislature. Arkansas is considering anti-spam legislation
specifically targeting sexually explicit
e-mails only.
It
is predicted that, by the end of 2003, most, if not
all, 50 states will have passed anti-spam measures.
A federal-level solution should also be passed by the
end of this year.
On
the other side of the coin, John Mozena of the Coalition
Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail (CAUCE) says that
of the 26 existing state laws against spam, only 4 have
been proven effective.
Most
analysts believe it will take a combined effort of legislators,
anti-spam providers and individual e-mail users to effectively
control spam.
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Washington’s
Anti-spam Bill Too Microsoft-friendly?
Washington
anti-spam bill Senate Bill 5734 might end up being weakened
by none other than the Microsoft Corporation. The new
bill proposes that fines to be paid by spammers for
each spam sent be set at $500 for individual users and
$1,000 for ISP’s. Microsoft proposes that the
new bill set fines at $10 per message and limit the
penalty for hijacking e-mail servers to $25,000 per
day.
Furthermore,
companies that have previously transacted with e-mail
users are exempted from the anti-spam law. Microsoft’s
Windows® OS (Operating System) is the most widely
used OS in today and can be justified as a previous
transaction. This exemption would clearly give Microsoft
an overwhelming advantage in e-mail marketing.
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Direct
Marketing Association Takes A Stand Against Spam
The
Direct Marketing Association says it will support federal
legislation to control spam. The group claims that federal
laws will not affect it adversely as most of its members
are not spammers. The DMA has traditionally been against
any form of legislation regarding commercial e-mails
and surprised everybody with this sudden change of position.
The
anti-spam industry is skeptical about this recent reversal
of the DMA’s position and believes that this is
just a ploy to legitimize spam and bring it out of the
gray area it’s currently in.
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The
Big Boys Step Out
AOL
and Microsoft, the two largest Internet service providers
in the US are unanimous in declaring spam as public
enemy no.1.
Recently,
AOL announced that it passed the 1 billion mark in daily
caught spam. This represents a milestone in the ISP’s
efforts to control spam on its network. AOL has been
actively pursuing spammers and has already been awarded
as much as $7 million in damages for one case.
Microsoft
has issued its own declaration of war against spam by
filing a John Doe case against the presently unknown
spammers that violated the Hotmail service. Hotmail
has been a haven for spammers where they can conduct
their activities in relative safety. Microsoft is seeking
to track down and investigate the spammers.
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Canada’s
Sympatico A Scam Spam Target
About
1,900 of Canadian ISP Sympatico’s 1.4 million
customers received a scam spam seemingly from Sympatico
requesting for personal and financial details last month.
This
latest scam holds similarities with previous scams targeting
AOL and Ebay.
Jay
Foley of the Identity Theft Resource Center says "It
recycles every 18 months or so. Usually what you'll
get is an e-mail and then it will redirect you to a
website that looks just like the billing site. I'd say
that is a beginner who's found out how to do it and
he's just reaching into the area. He's just testing
the waters to see what happens, and then he's going
to jump smartly onto a bigger scale."
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Sources:
Reuters, Associated Press, www.capitalnews9.com, www.PCWorld.com,
www.news8austin.com, www.pal-item.com, Arkansas News
Bureau, Computerworld, Internetweek
French Ban Spam
France's
National Assembly has voted in favor of banning spam.
The
move, presented to the lower house of parliament in
the form of government amendments to a law to "increase
confidence in the digital economy," was approved
by deputies at a first reading.
The
law now goes up to the upper house, the Senate, for
its approval.
The
draft bill, presented by deputy industry minister Nicole
Fontaine, would ban "direct marketing, notably
advertising, via electronic messages" to individuals
who had not given prior consent.
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Crackdown
On Spam In The UK
The
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of the UK will
be implementing a new code regarding e-mail and text
spam. This new code is found in 11th edition of the
CAP code, produced by the UK’s Committee of Advertising
Practice.
Explicit
consent is now required for marketing by e-mail or SMS
unless marketers are offering similar products to existing
customers.
While
the code is not law, businesses are advised to comply
with the new rules or else face crippling sanctions.
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Sources:
Agence France-Presse, www.out-law.com
Koreans Seeing More Foreign Spam
E-mail
users in Korea are seeing increasing numbers of spam
from the United States, China and Europe. The average
Korean e-mail user receives 54.4 spam mails per day
and 19,856 spam mails per year. These spam mails are
sent by Korean and non-Korean spammers.
The
Korean Information Security Agency (KISA) also received
about 67,000 spam-related complaints from overseas last
year. Korea has been identified as a leading source
of foreign spam in the US despite attempts of the Korean
government to control spam.
Among
the limits Korean legislation has set on spam is the
inclusion of the word “advertisement” in
the subject header so recipients are not misled regarding
the contents of spam. Violators of the Korean governments
anti-spam laws face up to 5 million won (A little over
US $4,000) in fines.
Already,
42 online marketers are being prosecuted over alleged
porn spam and websites. About 4 of the defendants are
suspected of devising ways around automated e-mail address
extractors.
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Global
War On spam Faltering In Singapore
Singapore
has chosen to stay on the sidelines in the war against
spam. The top three ISP’s in the city-state will
not be implementing coordinated anti-spam measures for
the time being and will be limiting their anti-spam
measures to watching their own specific networks.
The
official stance of Singapore regarding spam is that
as long as spam does not violate preset standards for
content (pornography being an obvious example) and doesn’t
cripple networks, it’s not illegal. It looks like
spam is here to stay in Singapore.
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Sources:
Singapore Press Holdings, Korean Herald, Asia in Focus
 |
Opinions From Inspector Mails
| Inspector
Mails is the AI entity for Bigfoot
Anti-spam Solution. He will be giving
regular updates on his opinions on current
anti-spam trends. |
|
Blacklists
and Whitelists: Not Your Best Anti-spam Defense
Relying on a blacklist or a whitelist is among the many
ways to filter out or block spam. A blacklist is a collection
of entire IP addresses that have been identified as
sources of spam. If your ISP uses a blacklist, e-mails
from IP addresses included in that list will be blocked.
This can dramatically cut down your spam but you also
run the risk that your legitimate e-mails will be blocked
as well. Whitelisting, on the other hand, is when the
only e-mails you’ll receive are from your pre-established
list of contacts. This is the best way not to get spammed
but you also have to realize that with this method,
e-mails from sources you didn’t put on your whitelist
will ALWAYS be blocked.
No
e-mail server is completely secure and sooner or later,
some enterprising spammer might hijack a system that
you regularly correspond with and get it listed on a
blacklist. If one of your clients uses that hijacked
system, don’t expect that you'll be able to correspond
with them. Your blacklist won’t allow them to
email you. Whitelist's downside is when that big deal
you’ve been waiting for might just fizzle out
when the other company finds out you’re not accepting
email from them.
Using
blacklists and whitelists do more harm than good due
to their indiscriminate methods for identification of
spam. While individual rights are important, screening
e-mails through the use of blacklists and whitelists
is counterproductive as it creates serious barriers
to the legitimate use of e-mail.
There
are many other effective ways to filter out spam. Relying
on blacklists and whitelists is simply not the best
solution as the “false positive” ratios
for these methods are relatively high. If you want to
see less spam in your inbox without the negative side
effects, try some of the anti-spam software out there.
Anti-spam
software can make a big difference in keeping your inbox
spam-free. I highly recommend Bigfoot
Anti-spam Solution. With Brightmail
as its partner, Bigfoot Anti-spam Solution has one of
the industry’s lowest false positive rates. Its
accuracy is about 99.9999% making errors literally a
one in a million occurrence. Because it works in the
background and is based on header content filtering
technology, it ensures mail privacy.
Spam
filtering is all about keeping what you want and throwing
out the rest. The way Bigfoot Anti-spam Solution is
set up, you can always rescue any false positives from
your bulk mail folder in your free WebMail
inbox. Or, if you don’t want to sift through your
bulk mail, you can automate your e-mail deletion for
your bulk mail folder.
Bigfoot
Anti-spam Solution is by no means the only anti-spam
solution out there. But, so far, it provides the best
balance of features, aggressiveness and ease-of-use.
Try
it today and see what I’m talking about
Inspector
Mails
Tell Inspector Mails what you think. E-mail your
comments and suggestions to antispam.review@bigfoot.com.
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Canning
Spam
Today,
those who have enlisted, joined or started the worthy
cause of a zero-tolerance, anti-spam campaign have deployed
a number of possibilities to tackle spam. It began with
the designing of highly advanced anti-spam software
coupled with the knowledge one acquires upon learning
the intricacies of the Internet. But it was not enough.
Now, recent escalations in the anti-spam efforts of
corporate, educational and governmental sectors are
bolstering the global anti-spam campaign. One can only
hope that in the near future, spam as business model
will be brought under control and ultimately eliminated
altogether.
In
the end, the whole idea of fighting spam is to leave
spammers with no room to breathe and no avenue to turn
to. In other words, can them like the edible variety
of spam – a chunk of meat tightly constrained
in an airtight can, waiting to be consumed. So, who
is up for canned spam? Anyone?
The
Editors
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pammers Love Valentines
Day
This
year’s Valentines Day saw an increase in the already
unmanageable flood of spam. Anti-spam provider Brightmail
recorded over 1,500 Valentines-related spam attacks
for the month of February 2003. This adds up to over
1 million Valentines spam messages.
Categories
for Valentines spam ranged from offers for flowers and
chocolates to gambling gift certificates.
It
seems consumer-driven holidays will be seeing more and
more spam as the crisis continues.
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Anti-spam
Provider Accused of Spamming
Anti-spam
provider SpamArrest was recently accused of spamming
with its e-mail marketing campaign. The firm has defended
its marketing tactics but increasing pressure from anti-spam
organizations, press and Internet users led the company
to reassess its stand.
An
apology for its alleged spam activities was posted on
its website reading:
"Recently
we have received some inquiries regarding a mailing
we delivered to some verified users of SpamArrest.
"While this contact was completely covered by our
privacy policy, our customers concerns come first.
"Because of this, SpamArrest has ceased sending
such solicitation and will not send unsolicited bulk
email again. SpamArrest apologizes for any inconvenience
this action may have caused anyone".
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Spam
Goes To School
University
networks are the latest battleground in the war against
spam. Recently, students from the Tufts University in
Medford, Mass. were reprimanded after the school administrators
discovered that some students were subletting their
computers to spammers.
The
students were paid $20 a month so spammers could use
the schools gigabit connection to send out spam.
In
some cases, the student did not give express permission
for their computers to be used for such activities.
Stealth installations of spam software have been known
to occur resulting in a computer being unwittingly used
as a spam server.
Administrators
acted quickly to stop all illegal activity and put measures
to prevent future spam activity.
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Sources:
Brightmail, ZDNet, Network World
| BEST
INFORMATION EVER RECEIVED |
| I
have just read your e-mail on anti-spam and feel
that this is the best information of this kind that
I have ever received and wish to congratulate you
on the production which is well done. Spam has reached
epidemic proportions as is well documented in your
e-mail and I will be forwarding your e-mail to many
people that I know who are techs out of their homes
and will use this information to good directions.
I am a student once more at age 44. I have been
a computer tech for 4 years and still do it now
at discount for other students. I have joined 2
Canadian groups for the fight against spam and applaude
this fine effort you make to advance the fight against
spam. {many accolades and kudos} Please continue
to send me this information so that I can be aware
of what is occurring in this anti-spam battle and
so that I can know what is the best to use to confront
spam head on and eliminate it from my inbox.
|
| duhfeet |
| ANTI-Spam
LEGISLATION |
| Make
it mandatory through legislation that each email
be marked as to what the email is about. The spammers
know they are sending spam. I know what I send.
Yes, this also applies to me and to each and every
email that is sent. If I want spam or porn, I can
elect to receive it. If I don't want it, I should
never find it in my mail as it should never get
past my ISP where my selection criteria should reside.
This should nearly eliminate the email flow of unwanted
solicitation. |
| Stoeda |
| CENTRAL
EMAIL LIST |
| We
registered our names on a list to prohibit telephone
solicitors and it has worked so well we can't believe
it. Why not have a central email list and make it
a federal crime to send an email to an address on
that list? |
| Gordon |
We
appreciate all of the comments and overwhelming response
we have received to the Anti-spam newsletter and we
will be addressing your concerns in the next issue.
You may send any comments regarding the newsletter to
antispam.review@bigfoot.com.
As we do reprint some of the comments of subscribers,
if you prefer that your email address be withheld, simply
advise Bigfoot and provide us a first name, city and
state as an alternative.
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Brightmail
Announces New Version of Anti-spam Software Exclusively
For Enterprises
Anti-spam Leader Improves Its Best-in-Industry
Accuracy Rate to 1 in 1 Million False Positives
March
03, 2003
SAN
FRANCISCO - Brightmail, the leader in anti-spam
technology, today announced its newest anti-spam
solution, built on Brightmail's proven technology
and refined to meet the needs of enterprises.
This latest version of Brightmail® Anti-spam
offers by far the best accuracy rate available,
with Brightmail having improved its industry leading
false positive rate to 1 false positive in 1 million
messages.
Brightmail
Anti-spam -- Enterprise Edition, Release 4.5,
delivers ease and lower total cost of administration.
Key strengths of the product include:
·
Streamlined installation process - can be done
in 5 minutes
· No ongoing administration
· Automatic foldering for Microsoft Exchange
· Performance reports can be generated
locally
· Available on Linux for the first time,
in addition to Solaris and Windows
Brightmail
Anti-spam is easy to deploy, with easier installation,
automatic registration and rule retrieval set-up.
It is easier to administer, with local report
generation and automated log rollover. This new
version also offers improved spam management with
automatic foldering for Microsoft Exchange and
the ability to forward sidelined messages for
review.
Brightmail
Anti-spam's reliability, accuracy, effectiveness
and ease of administration come from years of
experience and a wealth of spam knowledge. With
over 600 customers, Brightmail filtered more than
53 billion messages in February. Its Probe NetworkTM,
a collection of decoy email accounts that act
as spam magnets, has a statistical reach of 250
million mailboxes. As the Probe Network identifies
new spam attacks, grouping algorithms and the
BrightSigTM module consolidate polymorphic spam
attacks into signatures that are then automatically
ruled against. Brightmail immediately distributes
these dynamic auto-generated rules to customers,
with new rules going out every few minutes. Brightmail
Anti-spam works with any messaging environment,
including Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and
Novell GroupWise. In time and resource savings,
Brightmail customers generally see 100% ROI within
months, and up to 400% ROI within the first year. |
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Source:
PR Newswire, Brightmail
 |
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