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Give
Me Spam or Give Me Death!
Too
much evil will kill evil itself.
That
is what is likely to happen with the world’s
burgeoning spam problem, a university professor
in Singapore announced in June. He theorizes
that a certain equilibrium is achieved when
the spam problem grows into something very “intolerable
[that] it will eventually kill itself”.
The
Singaporean professor also foresees that it
won’t be long when spammers will be out
of business. The problem can be likened to a
captive iguana that eats its tail, whereby it
is tied, to free itself.
However,
other Internet experts are seeing a different
scenario. It’s hardly the spam-killing-spam
scenario, but worse - spam killing the Internet.
Doomsayers are seeing the imminent death of
the Internet itself. Spam, in its most intolerable
proportion, will eventually drive millions of
users from the Internet in a couple of years’
time.
What
are likely to happen in the future should not
dampen our spam-fighting spirit. Instead, they
should goad and motivate us to move ahead with
the spam-fighting plan. They are enough reasons
that we face the problem head-on and in full
force, mustering all possible avenues and exhaust
all means to reach a more positive end.
The
Internet has done - and continues to do -- great
wonders for mankind and it’s only logical
and practical to save it from a possible but
unwarranted demise.
Death of
the Internet Likely, Says Expert
The
proliferation of spam will eventually drive
millions of users from the Internet, causing
the Internet’s eventual death, said Robert
Shaw, Internet strategy expert with the United
Nations' International Telecommunications Union
(ITU), as quoted by Robert Evans for Reuters.
If
governments and software companies do not unite
to kill spam, the death of the Internet is the
most likely scenario.
According
to the report, citing the ITU expert, about
$25 billion is drained from the national economies
and that the loss of productivity incurred through
time wasted by clearing inboxes could be four
times the amount stated.
"If we achieve full international cooperation
among governments and software companies, this
plague which affects so many of us in our everyday
life will be defeated in short order (two years),"
said Robert Horton, Australia's top regulator,
"No one country can tackle this alone,
it is an international threat and we must work
together to defeat it."
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Does
Spam Bother U.S. Computer Users?
A survey conducted by software security
maker Symantec revealed that 50.8% of U.S. computer
users think that spam is not so much a threat
in the workplace, Dawn Kawamoto wrote for CNET
News.com. The survey had 299 end users as respondents.
The
report also added that approximately 68.2% admitted
that their company managed to reduce and control
the volume of spam.
But
information technology (IT) managers, who do
a lot of things behind the scenes, think otherwise.
79.1% of IT managers find spam to be a major
problem in the workplace while 56.4% say that
the spam situation is under control.
It
was also found out that spam makes up 25% to
40% of the e-mail that come into the networks,
nearly half of the IT managers surveyed said,
thereby costing companies time and resources.
More
IT managers, about 83% of the 110 respondents,
agreed that the volume of spam is affecting
employee productivity.
Anti-Spam
Registry Fails to Get FTC Support
The no-spam registry proposal may
just be trudging its way to the waste bin, as
it is getting no endorsement from the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC), Reuters reported.
Patterned
after the Do Not Call list that deters telemarketers
from calling, the “Do Not Spam”
registry, the FTC said, could just be used as
a source of leads by email marketers.
The
Reuters report said that FTC Chairman Timothy
Muris junked the idea, adding that it will not
solve the spam problem, unlike the popular national
“Do Not Call” list, which is making
successful results in curbing unwanted telemarketing
calls.
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Regulators
Banking on Technology and Legislation to Dam
Spam
Net regulators from 60 countries
see the need to introduce legislation and exhaust
technology to finally dam spam, phishing and
other forms of fraud on the Internet, John Blau
wrote for IDG News Service.
This resolution was made early
this month in an anti-spam conference in Geneva,
Switzerland. The International Telecommunication
Union (ITU) sponsored the conference.
Regulators also agreed to move
forward with a global and synchronized effort
to fight spam and abuse of the Internet, the
report said quoting Robert Horton, of the Australian
Communications Authority and chairman of the
meeting, a unit of the United Nations.
"This is an important start
to solving a problem that is costing businesses
and consumers over $25bn (£13.4bn) a year
and could easily reach into the trillions if
it destroys the internet methods of the banking
industry,” said Mr. Horton.
Here are the steps the regulators
proposed:
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Have all countries introduce some form of anti-spam
legislation and appoint a regulator.
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Obtain support from industry players, such as
ISPs and mobile phone companies
offering new email services.
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Implement consumer education to prevent users
from clicking on URLs in email messages
that ask for confidential information.
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Generate international cooperation at all levels,
from government and industry to
consumer, business and anti-spam groups.
These
recommended measures made at the conference
will be published in a report that will be forwarded
to the working group on spam preparing for the
second World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS) in Tunisia in November 2005, the report
ended.
Russia Taking Major
Steps to Can Spam
Russia
is taking major steps in combating spam.
Moscow
City Duma has recently approved in a first reading
a resolution to pass amendments to the federal
law that will have to do with combating spam,
MosNews.com reported.
The
Moscow MPs proposition is to prohibit advertisers
to spread commercials using networks, unless
they are sending them to users who opted to
receive such materials.
According to the Russian Information Agency
Novosti, what will be considered spamming is
when a material is sent out to more than 2,500
Internet users in a day, or more than 25,000
in a month.
Fines
will be imposed on spammers. Those who hide
their names and addresses or those who spread
pornography, obscene information and viruses
may face criminal liability, the report said.
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top
China
Launches Consultation to Seek Anti-Spam Ideas
The Chinese government has launched
a four-month public consultation to solicit
people’s ideas on how to curb spam, HK
Edition reports.
According to Secretary for Commerce,
Industry and Technology John Tsang this move
seeks to dig deeper into the problems brought
about by unwanted electronic messages, including
emails, faxes, short messaging service (SMS)
and multi-media messaging service (MMS).
There will be five areas on
which anti-spam efforts will be focused, Tsang
said as quoted in the report. These are: self-regulation
by telecommunication industries, technical solutions,
internal cooperation, user awareness and legislation.
With
regards to legislation, a number of factors
should be considered including administration
and enforcement costs, which Mr. Tsang acknowledge
would have to be shouldered by the taxpayers.
Other concerns would have to do with its impact
on the privacy of personal communications, and
spam’s extra-territorial nature.
Spam Will
Die Down in 2 Years
"The spam problem will
be fixed -- it must be fixed," a strong
statement expressed by Ravi Sharma, Information
Studies Associate Professor at Nanyang Technological
University in Singapore.
In a report by David Legard
for IDG News Service, Mr. Sharma foresees that
the spam problem will soon be over, within 2
years, as spammers will be going out of business.
“In society, you never
have a majority suffering under an onslaught
from an inconsiderate minority. An equilibrium
will be achieved," Sharma said. He added
that the spam problem, because it is becoming
“intolerable,” would eventually
kill itself.
Sharma
also pointed out that the best immediate solution
to the global spam problem is stop it at the
source – that is by tracking down IP (Internet
protocol) addresses from where spam originated
and blacklisting them.
Taiwanese
Gov’t Drafts Anti-Spam Law
The
Taiwanese government has drafted its own anti-spam
legislation, The China Post reported.
The
law was drafted by the Ministry of Transportation
and Communications.
The
proposed Law Governing Unsolicited Commercial
Email will impose a maximum fine of NT$1 million
(US$30,000) and 6 months to 5 years in prison
on violators if they are caught sending spam
that causes distraught to receivers.
Also,
under this law, spammers will have to compensate
their victims NT$500 ($14 USD) to NT$2,000 ($60
USD) for every mail they send. This has a maximum
liability of NT$20 million ($593,000 USD).
Mails
of unsolicited nature will have to be clearly
indicated as commercial mail to allow receivers
the option of opening it or not. Otherwise,
it will be in violation of the proposed law.
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Sender
Authentication Won’t End Spam, Experts
Say
Industry
technology experts at the E-Mail Technology
Conference (ETC) in the United States agree
that Sender Authentication and Accreditation
may help lessen spamming, but also acknowledged
that it may not likely end this worsening problem.
According
to a report by John Dickinson of Messaging Pipeline,
John Levine, who chairs the Anti-Spam Research
Group, said that “these are merely steps
on a very long road.”
During
ETC’s panel called “The Untrustworthy
Nature of E-Mail”, IronPort Senior Vice
President Tom Gillis made such controversy when
he suggested that individual email users must
submit their social security numbers or any
other secure form of identification in order
to gain access once email accreditation systems
become widely used.
However, this suggestion drew fire from the
floor and hostile reactions that questioned
how the suggested solution would increase email
trustworthiness.
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United
They Stand vs. Spam
Australia,
Britain and the United States of America have
entered into an agreement to combat spam, news.com.au
reported. This agreement, essentially, will
provide the parties easy access to information,
evidence exchange and enforcement coordination
against border-crossing spam violators.
USA’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) signed
the agreement with Australia’s Competition
and Consumer Commission and the Communications
Authority, and Britain’s Office of Fair
Trading, the Information Commissioner and the
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
“This
agreement provides a framework for cooperation
in fighting cross-border spam affecting all
three countries,” said Bob Horton acting
Chairman, Australian Communications Authority.
“Illegal spam does not respect national
boundaries,” said Timothy Muris, chairman
of the US Federal Trade Commission, “this
agreement is an important next step to help
law enforcers on three continents leverage resources
to combat illegal spam.”
“It's not going to solve spam overnight
but it reinforces our determination to tackle
it with a combination of industry initiatives,
technical solutions and user awareness,”
said Stephen Timms, British Communications Minister.
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Opinions From Inspector Mails
| Inspector Mails is the AI entity for Bigfoot's
Anti-Spam
Solution. He will be
giving regular updates and opinions
on current anti-spam trends. |
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Take
Advantage of Bigfoot Anti-Spam Options
I
purchased anti-spam protection for this email
account from Bigfoot 2 months ago and, I guess
I don't know how to use it because I've never
had as much spam as I have now.
At
first I forwarded all spam to Bigfoot but it
didn't help so I stopped. Fortunately, I have
McAfee and it identifies the viruses but I expected
to have them intercepted before they got to
me. Is that wrong? What must be done to stop
them? I appreciate any advice I can get.
Pam
Watson
Signs Manufacturing Corp.
Bigfoot Anti-spam Solution right now
does not have the capability to filter viruses
out of emails.
I
advise that you take advantage of our Advanced
Anti-spam options by:
- Adjusting the filter's sensitivity options
to high (this could be done through
Webmail's Email Options > Anti-Spam)
- Making use of user-specified blacklists (still
could be done through Webmail's
Email Options > Black List)
If
you don’t want to receive the tagged spam
messages at all, then you have to configure
Email Options > Anti-Spam through Webmail
to Delete Spam upon identification. However,
this is not a recommended option, as it doesn't
allow recovery of deleted messages at all.
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Will
Unlisting Email Addresses Solve Spam?
For
your local phone #, you can request
an "unlisted #". Will this
be an option one day for your email
address? Would that eliminate spam?
-
Linda C.
|
This is a very timely question.
In
this issue’s United States Section,
we’re reporting that the Federal
Trade Commission has just refused to
give support to the proposed “Do
Not Spam” registry. This is actually
patterned after the “Do Not Call”
list that prohibits telemarketers from
calling.
The
FTC junked the idea believing that it
will not solve the spam problem. The
FTC feared that email marketers might
take advantage of this list and use
or abuse it.
The
same thing could be said about the idea
of giving Internet users the option
to have their email addresses unlisted.
Apparently, spammers don’t follow
rules since they make their own rules. |
We
appreciate all of the comments and response
we have received about the newsletter and we
will be addressing your concerns in the next
issue. You may send your comments to antispam.review@bigfoot.com.
Since we print some of the comments we receive,
simply advise Bigfoot if you prefer that your
complete name and email address be withheld,
and provide us a first name, city and state
as an alternative.
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