Objective of Meeting
Summary
Outputs
Next Steps
Links
Sponsoring Forum
Messaging
|
The Messaging Forum Spam Summit
Objective of Meeting
The growth of unsolicited email (Spam) is threatening to overwhelm email systems.
Technical solutions which intercept Spam are emerging but raise a number of important
questions:
- False positives .. valid email rejected
- Can the developers of Spam filters keep up with Spammers
- How does this impact the business of legitimate email marketing companies
Anti-Spam legislation is emerging but having little impact beyond encouraging the
originators of Spam to move to areas beyond the jurisdiction of legislation.
The objective of the Spam Summit was to bring together many groups concerned about Spam
to explore ways of addressing the problem.
Summary
Dean Richardson of MessageGate Inc and Chair of the Messaging Forum started the meeting
with a brief presentation introducing The Open Group
and the Messaging Forum for the benefit of first-time attendees.
The first part of the day focused on the activities of legislators.
- Howard
Beales, the Director of the Bureau of Consumer Affairs at the US Federal
Trade Commission made a speech which clearly set out the position of the FTC, citing
figures to show the unacceptable growth of Spam and looking at the legislative approaches
in the USA.
- Derek
Wyatt, MP, Chairman of the UK All Party Internet Group, joined the meeting by
teleconference and answered questions about the European and UK approaches, calling for a
coordinated international approach to legislation and strongly urged the US to switch to
an "opt-in" scheme.
Neither of these presenters used slides. A recorded audio WEBcast of
this session is available.
- Mike Lambert gave an overview of Spam
Legislation in Europe, including the most recent EU Directive on privacy and
electronic communications, observing that lack of enforcement resource is likely to limit
its effectiveness.
- Suresh Ramasubramanian, coordinator of CAUCE Asia Pacific, completed
the picture with an overview of Asian and US
Anti-Spam laws from the perspective of an ISP. Unlike other presenters, Suresh was
optimistic about the likely impact of legislation.
The next session started to address technical approaches to block Spam.
- Andrew Barrett of the SpamCon Foundation looked at the role of eMail
Blocklists, lists of sites that are known to originate Spam.
- Yakov Shafranovich, from SolidMatrix Technologies, Inc. and co-chair of
the IRTF/ASRG, presented an overview of the work of the Anti-Spam
Research Group within the Internal Research Task Force (sister organization of IETF),
which is looking at long-term technical approaches to address the problem of Spam.
A previous event in July
2003 looked at Spam from a user perspective, the use of filter technology to block
Spam, and an innovative approach to certify well-behaved mail sites.
The closing session of the Spam Summit addressed potential contributions from The Open
Group's Messaging Forum to address the problem of Spam.
- The group has already produced a Manager's Guide to Coping with Spam,
available shortly, which aims to explain what Spam is and how an organization can use the
tools that are currently available.
- There is a need for more broadly available information. The Open Group plans to become a
source of information via its web site.
- One of the strengths of The Open Group is its processes for certification. There was a
discussion about the potential for certifying well-behaved mail sites and including
certified sites in a real-time White List. There are a number of distinct questions that
need to be addressed to assess the feasibility of this proposal:
- Is it possible to develop a code of practice for mail sites that would be acceptable to
the Direct Marketing companies AND the Spam filter vendors/ISPs?
- Is there any way to strengthen authentication of the originator of email short of
re-engineering the Internet mail service?
- What would it take to get ISPs and Spam Filter vendors to respect a real-time White
List?
Outputs
Information from this meeting and the previous one held in July 2003 will be presented
in a version of the Messaging Forum's magazine, The Message.
Next Steps
- Publication of The Manager's Guide to Coping with Spam.
- Creation of The Open Group Spam Resource .. a structured web site with links to related
information.
- Working meetings to address the three questions relating to the feasibility of the
Certified White List approach.
Links
Derek Wyatt MP
Coalition Against Unsolicited Commerical eMail (CAUCE)
SpamCon Foundation
Summary of US State Anti-Spam Laws
EU
Directive 2002/58/EC
US Can Spam Bill
IRTF Anti Spam Research Group
|
