Close
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications

    Spam Fighters Plot Strategy

    By
    Mark Hachman
    -
    March 20, 2003
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      On Thursday, a task force of engineers began meeting in San Francisco to discuss the best methods of fighting spam.

      Engineers attending the meetings indicated that they prefer a comprehensive reworking of Internet systems designed to fight spam. How this will play out in the business world, however, is anybodys guess.

      Spam, the popular name for junk email, represents about 40 percent of all email traffic, according to Brightmail, a company set up to fight spam. Researchers at the U.K.s Star Technology Group estimate that spam represents 0.05 percent of total Internet bandwidth, or 5 percent of all email traffic in terms of size, though 50 percent in terms of quantity.

      “Spam is 50 percent of all email,” wrote Matt Sergeant, a researcher for Star Technology, which applies virus filtering to email documents through dedicated servers. “But the average email size is 60 Kbytes (this gets bloated to the high end by Word documents and other large things that get emailed around, but its still an accurate average). The average spam size is 6k at the moment. So at 1/10th of the size of regular email, spam accounts for 5 percent, bandwidth-wise.

      “However, on the flip side, we still have to apply aggressive filters to every email we see,” Sergeant added. “Our virus filters are extremely aggressive (but we dont have any false positive problems there – about 2 [false positives] every 10 million mails), and so it takes us about 1 second to process a mail, regardless of the size. So while spam is only 5 percent of the bandwidth, its 50 percent of the processor time. Thats 100 percent more servers we have to buy just because of spam.”

      The members of the International Engineering Task Force (IETF) are expected to publicly debate solutions that have been privately bandied about in mailing lists and other fora for the past months.

      The AntiSpam Research Group of the Internet Research Task Force, funded by the IETF, focuses its efforts on three efforts for fighting spam: consent expression, or expressing a policy that gives consent for spam; policy enforcement, which applies rules set up for denying or accepting spam to individual emails; and source tracking, or trying to track down the sources of email which try to break or otherwise bypass the filtering rules.

      Paul Judge, the chairman of the AntiSpam Research Group and director of R&D at CipherTrust, a trusted email device provider, has created a semi-graphical taxonomy of a secure anti-spam system.

      “I went back and looked at some of my older work in creating taxonomies,” Judge wrote to an anti-spam mailing list. “The top level classification was incorrect. Instead of prevention, deterrence, and response, I believe that it should be prevention, detection, and response.”

      One method of fighting spam involves verifying the domain name of the sender before a message is accepted The use of forward DNS, which asks for a receipt verifying the existence of the sender, is a policy supported by Phillip Hallam-Baker, chief scientist at VeriSign. While “vanilla” DNS checking is sometimes today to simply check whether the domain of the sender exists, that technique cant actually verify that the message actually originated from that domain.

      The problem, as Sergeant pointed out, is that many spam emails are sent from lists of millions of email addresses “harvested” from Web pages, email lists, and other sources. However, the bulk emailer or “list kiddie” typically falsifies his own email address.

      “Someone (most likely your ISP or email provider) has to deal with the resulting bounce from the receiving domain,” Sergeant wrote.

      But blocking unverifiable emails also eliminates anonymous emails from being sent, others pointed out. Sergeant responded by noting that bounced emails can be filtered, and observers noted that bounced emails can be easily trashed if they lack an “@” symbol.

      Mark Hachman

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Cybersecurity

      Visa’s Michael Jabbara on Cybersecurity and Digital...

      James Maguire - May 17, 2022 0
      I spoke with Michael Jabbara, VP and Global Head of Fraud Services at Visa, about the cybersecurity technology used to ensure the safe transfer...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      Alteryx’s Suresh Vittal on the Democratization of...

      James Maguire - May 31, 2022 0
      I spoke with Suresh Vittal, Chief Product Officer at Alteryx, about the industry mega-shift toward making data analytics tools accessible to a company’s complete...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      GoodData CEO Roman Stanek on Business Intelligence...

      James Maguire - May 4, 2022 0
      I spoke with Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData, about business intelligence, data as a service, and the frustration that many executives have with data...
      Read more
      Applications

      Cisco’s Thimaya Subaiya on Customer Experience in...

      James Maguire - May 10, 2022 0
      I spoke with Thimaya Subaiya, SVP and GM of Global Customer Experience at Cisco, about the factors that create good customer experience – and...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Yotascale CEO Asim Razzaq on Controlling Multicloud...

      James Maguire - May 5, 2022 0
      Asim Razzaq, CEO of Yotascale, provides guidance on understanding—and containing—the complex cost structure of multicloud computing. Among the topics we covered:  As you survey the...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×