Queensland government spam dragnet ignites furore - News - Security

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Queensland government spam dragnet ignites furore

By Andrew Colley, 0
September 05, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Queensland-government-spam-dragnet-ignites-furore/0,130061744,120267974,00.htm

A Queensland government department's spam-filtering dragnet has snagged large numbers of genuine users and reignited heated debate over use of e-mail blacklists.

The furore arose after customers of two popular Internet services were left unable to contact the Queensland Department of Local Government and Planning (DGLP) via email late last week, as their provider's mail server addresses were earmarked for blocking on a spam blacklist.

The incident was sparked by the department's use of commercial e-mail filtering software that relies on lists generated by the Distributed Server Boycott List (DSBL) and other mail server blacklist operators.

TPG Internet and OzEmail customers were unable to contact the Department of Local Government and Planning (DLGP) via e-mail for between 24 and 48 hours last Friday while representatives of each ISP removed their mail server addresses from the DSBL.

The Internet Industry Association (IIA) said it was sharply opposed to the use of mail server blacklists.

IIA chairman, Peter Coroneos, described list operators as "vigilantes" and described spam-filtering blacklisting as heavy-handed. It may also, he said, unjustly punish ISPs.

"In some cases the spam may never have really come from the ISP's network to begin with," said Coroneos

Coroneos said spam operators use a number of techniques to falsify the source of e-mails, including simply changing header information.

DSBL generates its list by supplying volunteer tech-enthusiasts with software to test mail servers for vulnerabilities that can be exploited by spam operators. DSBL then publishes the server list online through its Web site dsbl.org.au.

The DLGP said it had examined DSBL's methods and was satisfied with the way DSBL managed its lists.

The DGLP also indicated it was not prepared to wait for debate over the use of spam blacklists to conclude.

A spokesperson for the department said it had an obligation to protect its staff from offensive and violent e-mail.

"Our logs indicate that unsolicited emails containing obscenities, viruses and spam advertising are blocked every day," she said.

She added that the department faces "severe" productivity losses if its employees are required to sort through junk e-mail.

However, Coroneos said that there was far too much "collateral damage" - genuine users being caught in spam blocking sweeps - associated with the list-dependent technologies.

While information sharing is still a valuable tool to counter-spam, he said, the industry should be looking to technologies that filter at a more granular level blocking individual messages rather than entire mail domains.