Fed report: Spam destabilising the Net - News - Security

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Fed report: Spam destabilising the Net

April 10, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Fed-report-Spam-destabilising-the-Net/0,130061744,120264515,00.htm

According to Federal Government findings, spam accounts for 10 to 20 percent of e-mail passing through commercial servers and is starting to invade other Internet messaging services.

Australia's minister for information technology Senator Richard Alston acknowledged that spam has become a threat to the stability of Internet services in a progress report on the National Office for the Information Economy's (NOIE) investigation into bulk unsolicited e-mail.

"Some spamming operations appear to be overloading or temporarily closing overwhelmed servers and networks of innocent intermediaries. Ultimately this has implications for the stability of Internet services, especially if spam campaigns are deliberately used to deliver viruses," Alston said.

"Spam is spreading beyond e-mail to other forms of electronic messaging, such as relay chat and instant messaging," he said.

NOIE is currently consulting with interested parties from community and industry to assess the effectiveness of measures to counter spam.

According to Senator Alston, the inquiry has attracted strong response from the public and private industry.

Solutions currently on the table for consideration include education campaigns, self-regulatory practices and codes for ISPs and commercial associations. The review may result in regulatory changes specifically targeting spam.

In February, when Senator Alston first announced the NOIE investigation, he drew strong criticism from shadow parliamentary secretary for consumer affairs, Alan Griffin. Griffin said that the government was simply recognising that measures it had taken to combat in the past have proved ineffective.

The results of the NOIE's review are expected mid-2002. In the meantime the Federal Government has extended the deadline to respond to NOIE's Web-based, spam questionnaire to April 19.