Fed report: Spam destabilising the Net

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.

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A few high profile court cases prosecuting known spammers; seeking payment for stolen services would serve to deter many "home spammers". (Not an original thought) http://mail-abuse.org/ RealTime Black Hole List is another good ideaAaron Sinclair -- 11/04/02

A few high profile court cases prosecuting known spammers; seeking payment for stolen services would serve to deter many "home spammers". (Not an original thought)

http://mail-abuse.org/ RealTime Black Hole List is another good idea. This "subscribes" your mail server to a know list of likely spam origins and declines mail from anyone on this list.

My favourite is www.spamradio.com - someone has gone to a lot of effort to put spam to music and broadcast real time. ?Finaly a use for spam?

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Here's an idea - What if it were actually both nationally and internationally illegal for ISP's to allow spam (I mean, any mass-mailed unsolicited email which receipients definitely object to receiving) to be uploaded? In every case a message is sent, theAnonymous -- 11/04/02

Here's an idea - What if it were actually both nationally and internationally illegal for ISP's to allow spam (I mean, any mass-mailed unsolicited email which receipients definitely object to receiving) to be uploaded? In every case a message is sent, there is a known originating ISP, right? And unless the provider or it's client is hacked, there is no defense to this fact. But if ISP's at the same time are made to implement software that makes their service secure to begin with - expensive, but what do these spam attacks cost an ISP (or the penalties) in comparison? - spam originating from them becomes their responsibility. It is then up to the ISP to remove known spammers from their client base. The (eventual) effect is like hitting 2 birds with one stone - better network-level anti-hacker software development and the curbing of spam - Eutopia(?)! Naturally, a simultaneous penalty system for non-ISP email providers and instant messenger services such as Yahoo, ICQ and Hotmail needs to exist as well. These are more difficult to police of course, but by forcing them to report an ISP carrying the offending client, the situation may have leeway for these.

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Only 10 to 20 percent? In our company it's more like 50%. Richard Lowe, http://www.internet-tips.netAnonymous -- 12/04/02

Only 10 to 20 percent? In our company it's more like 50%.

Richard Lowe, http://www.internet-tips.net

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