E-mail commerce vs. politics
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Solving the nation&#39;s spam problem will require a balancing act, legal and privacy experts said today in Washington, DC, at a meeting sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission.
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(InfoWorld) - Is the fight against spam horribly misguided? For years, spam haters have relied on junk-mail filters and Internet blacklists, but lately some are saying it's time for a change in tactics.                                                     Their answer: follow the money. And that means going after the Web sites where spammers sell their pharmaceuticals and watches and male enhancement products. Misguided or not, it's pretty easy to argue that the fight against spam has been a losing proposition of late. At the end of last year, mail administrators noticed a big spike in the amount of spam flooding their inboxes. Between July 1 and the end of the year, spam jumped to nearly 60 percent of all e-mail traffic monitored by Symantec, and many administrators say it makes up an even greater percentage of e-mail now. Spam filtering is not the answer, said Garth Bruen, who runs a volunteer project focused on taking down the Web sites run by spammers. Bruen tracks down the ISPs and domain name registrars used by spammers and arranges to have their sites shut down. "This problem is not going to go away if you ignore it. Blocking and filtering is just a jacked-up technological form of ignoring," he said. "What you want to do is report it and make it difficult for these people to exist on the Net and do their transactions." Earlier this month, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, endorsed Bruen's position, saying that anti-spam fighters could really hurt the spammers' bottom lines by targeting their Web sites. "If there was more diligence in taking down the Web sites, that would have an effect on overall spam," said Chris Fleizach, a research assistant at UC San Diego. Bruen says current approaches to spam fighting evolved out of a different era -- before spam was widely used for online fraud or delivering malicious software. "When this problem started out, people were annoyed, and a lot of the junk mail at that time was urban legends and chain letters and stuff that wasn't as much of a threat as it is now," he said. Over the past four years, Bruen has tried to move the fight to a new front with his project KnujOn (that's "no junk" backward, for those who aren't into word games), which has helped shut down more than 30,000 spammer Web sites. The project asks volunteers to send in their spam, and it uses these submissions to build a large database linking sites to known spammers. To date, it has helped take down more than 32,000 of these junk mail sites. When the project launched, KnujOn tracked just a few thousand Web sites in its database, but that number has now grown to several hundred thousand. Interestingly, the total number of spamming groups has remained constant -- somewhere around 50. "There really aren't many people involved in this," Bruen said. That's one reason why people such as Bruen think that they can make a real difference by targeting the Web. Though critics say that KnujOn may end up fighting the same war of attrition that has already occurred with e-mail blocking, Bruen thinks he can eventually wear the spammers out. "There's a point of exhaustion where they run out of places to go," he said. KnujOn isn't the only group targeting spammer Web sites. Earlier this month, Computer Cops, the company that runs the PIRT (Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination) phishing take-down program, expanded its efforts to and began doing the same thing. Computer Cops believes many of the spamming groups are responsible for a lot of other online crime. "We're trying to take a look at all of the Internet crime out there and do criminal profiles," said Paul Laudanski, the company's owner and the leader of the PIRT project. Crime-fighting groups that focus only on spam or phishing don't get the full picture, he added. "If one organization is only focusing on one thing, they're missing a lot of criminal activity." Scott Conti recently signed on as one of KnujOn's 1,300 registered contributors because he liked the project's Web-centric approach. "There aren't many people going back to the source," said Conti, the director of information technology at Greenfield Community College, in Greenfield, Mass. "That's what I thought was interesting about it. They are actually trying to take a proactive approach by going after the sites and going after the ISPs that are hosting them." Greenfield College is now contributing between 50 and 100 spam samples per week to KnujOn, and in return it gets back information it can use to blacklist spam sites. The college needs all the help it can get. About 96 percent of the 90,000 e-mail messages processed each day by Greenfield's IT department are spam, Conti said. It's one of his biggest headaches, Conti said. "We probably get more vocal complaining about spam than just about any other problem we're likely to have."
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To curb spam, getting your Hotmail via Outlook/Express won&#39;t be free much longer ... posted 12:49pm EST Tue Sep 28 2004 - submitted by Christopher R. Anderson.
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With the presidential election just a few weeks away, pressure is mounting on both camps to effectively use the Internet to help woo voters -- but the ad money isn't flowing online. -washingtonpost.com
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I spent much of this afternoon in a mandatory (for poll workers) four hour training class on the Hart InterCivic eSlate voting system, soon to be in use in elections in my home county. (Hart InterCivic is a privately held firm out of Houston, specializing in election equipment and in software products for county records offices). Contrary to my previous impression, the machines are not touch screen machines, although they share some similarities.  I went into the class skeptical; I have been a critic of what I percieve as an unseemly rush to adopt insecure electronic voting systems. I emerged guardedly optimistic; the systems appear, from what I can tell, to be reasonably secure against vote manipulation by people who are not part of the election staff, and they appear to provide approximately the same level of security against election office malfeasance that paper ballots do. At the end of the day, if the election staff wants to tamper, they can; but that was true with paper ballots as well. That risk can be mitigated by election office procedures intended to mitigate it; in San Mateo County's case, those procedures have in some important regards not yet been established, as I will discuss below.
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Technology policy hasn&#39;t played a major role in this year&#39;s U.S. presidential campaign, but the major candidates have staked out positions on issues such as&#160;net neutrality&#160;and&#160;skilled-worker visas.As in past presidential campaigns, candidates haven&#39;t viewed technology issues as ones that drive voters to the polls.Instead, debate over the war in Iraq, the economy, illegal immigration, and other issues will inspire voters in 24 states (plus American Samoa and Democrats living overseas) on&#160;Super Tuesday&#160;to choose which candidates they want to be nominees of the Democratic or Republican parties.Some tech groups have long complained that many politicians don&#39;t get technology. In late January, the Washington, D.C., tech PR firm 463 Communications released a poll with two-thirds of respondents saying that presidential candidates should have at least as much knowledge about the Internet as they do. However, only 45 percent said the next president will know as much about the Internet as they do.In December, Garrett M. Graff, an editor at large at Washingtonian magazine and the first blogger admitted to a White House briefing, wrote a column in The Washington Post, complaining about the lack of tech-savvy candidates. That prompted others to comment as well.Members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the panel that debates many tech issues, often talk about their lack of tech experience, Adam Thierer, a senior follow with the tech-centric conservative think tank, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, wrote on the PFF&#39;s blog.&quot;Without missing a beat, they make jokes about not ever using the Internet or computers but that they have staffers or young family members who do and keep them informed,&quot; he wrote. &quot;And yet, despite this stunning unfamiliarity with all things high-tech, they then move right on to pass reams of regulations governing the Internet and digital economy. Again, it&#39;s not funny anymore and we should stop allowing them to pretend it is.&quot;That said, several presidential candidates have taken positions on tech-related issues this year. In alphabetical order, these are some of their views:Senator Hillary ClintonNew York Democrat Clinton, like other candidates, hasn&#39;t made tech issues a central part of her campaign, but she has championed an &quot; innovation agenda&quot; as one of her top issues. That agenda includes several policies that many large tech companies have embraced.Clinton wants to pump up the basic research budgets at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy&#39;s Office of Science, and the Department of Defense by 50 percent over 10 years.She also would require that federal research agencies set aside at least 8 percent of their research budgets for discretionary funding of high-risk research, and she would increase funding for research on Internet- and IT-based tools, including supercomputing and simulation software.&quot;Under the Bush administration, agencies like the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have reduced support for truly revolutionary research,&quot; Clinton&#39;s Web site says. &quot;This is a problem because DARPA has played a major role in maintaining America&#39;s economic and military leadership. DARPA backed such projects as the Internet, stealth technology, and the Global Positioning System.&quot;Clinton also wants tax incentives to encourage broadband providers to deploy services in underserved areas. She has called for federal support of state and local broadband programs, including municipal broadband projects. Clinton has also called for a research-and-development tax credit, extended temporarily multiple times since 1981, to be made permanent.Clinton has said she would support net neutrality regulations for U.S. broadband providers.Former Governor Mike HuckabeeHuckabee, an Arkansas Republican and ordained Baptist minister, has largely ignored tech issues during his campaign.He has, however, called for an increase in immigrant visas for highly skilled and highly educated workers, a position shared by many large tech companies. Otherwise, Huckabee would largely shut down U.S. borders to immigrants.Instead of technology, Huckabee has focused on social issues such as making abortion illegal and defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.Huckabee also wants the U.S. to achieve independence from oil-producing nations.Senator John McCainThe Arizona Republican is a long-time member of the Senate Commerce Committee. As such, he can argue that he has the most tech policy experience of any of the remaining major-party candidates.In recent years, McCain has pushed for a nationwide voice and data network for public safety agencies. He was one of the Senate&#39;s leading voices in the effort to get U.S. television stations to give up part of their analog spectrum for use by police and fire departments. The rest of that spectrum is being sold in the Federal Communications Commission&#39;s auctions now under way.McCain has been noncommittal about net neutrality laws. He&#39;s said he&#39;d be concerned if Internet users&#39; access is blocked, but he&#39;s also suggested broadband carriers need to recoup their investments.McCain last year also called for an increase in government research and development spending, and he&#39;s said he&#39;d draft &quot;the best and the brightest&quot; of American CEOs to work in his administration if he were elected, including Cisco Systems&#39; John Chambers and Microsoft&#39;s Steve Ballmer.He has also supported efforts to make an Internet tax moratorium permanent, recently calling the Internet &quot;likely the most popular invention since the light bulb.&quot; In 2004, he urged the Federal Trade Commission to focus more of its efforts on fighting spam.In 2005, McCain split from many other Republicans by authoring legislation that would prohibit states from outlawing municipal broadband projects. McCain said then he was concerned that the U.S. has fallen behind more than a dozen other countries on broadband adoption.Senator Barack ObamaThe Illinois Democrat in November released an extensive tech policy paper, earning him praise from several tech groups.Obama gets technology, said Julius Genachowski, co-founder of Rock Creek Ventures and a long-time friend. &quot;He will be a true 21st century president, using technology to improve the lives of all Americans,&quot; Genachowski said at a tech forum last week.In the tech agenda, Obama called for net neutrality regulations for broadband carriers. &quot;Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices,&quot; he said in his tech policy.Parents need better tools and information to control what their children see on the Internet and television, he said.He called for greater privacy protections for all U.S. residents, including Internet users, and he said government and businesses should be held accountable for privacy violations. He wants an update of government surveillance laws that allow intelligence-gathering on U.S. citizens to be done &quot;only under the rule of law.&quot;Obama would also increase the Federal Trade Commission&#39;s enforcement budget and focus increased international cooperation to track down cybercriminals.Obama also wants to make government data more available online. He would revamp a number of existing programs, and create some new ones, to help roll out broadband in the U.S. He called for a review of wireless spectrum use in the U.S. and said he would &quot;confront the entrenched Washington interests that have kept our public airwaves from being maximized for the public&#39;s interest.&quot;He has pledged to make the research-and-development tax credit permanent. He also called for patent reform, primarily by giving the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office more resources to improve patent quality.Former Governor Mitt RomneyRomney, a Massachusetts Republican, hasn&#39;t made many tech issues a central part of his campaign, but he has focused on U.S. competitiveness, a popular issue for many IT companies.Romney&#39;s competitiveness initiative would seek to improve U.S. schools and at the same time cut individual and corporate tax rates. He wants to improve worker retraining programs by consolidating and streamlining numerous federal programs.He has taken positions on a couple of other tech-related issues as well. In interviews Romney has expressed support for a permanent Internet tax ban, and he&#39;s said he supports free trade, a position echoed by many large tech vendors.Romney has also said he would support an increase in H-1B visas for high-skilled workers.&quot;I like the idea of the best and brightest in the world coming here,&quot; he told the TechCrunch blog in November. &quot;I&#39;d rather have them come here permanently rather than come and go, but I believe our visa program is designed to help us solve gaps in our employment pool. Where there are individuals who have skills that we do not have in abundance here, I&#39;d like to bring them here and contribute to our economy.&quot;
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By Cynthia McMullen  Last week, I received nearly 700 e-mails, give or take a few spam.  That's a joke; spam accounts for nearly 90 percent of the e-mail I receive at work. And I don't mean the Hormel meat product, Spam, for whom unsolicited commercial mail was named.
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The Story: Even when there?s good news on the security front, there always seems to be bad news to balance it out. And while we think this news is important for you to know, it?s not an exception to the Good News/Bad News Syndrome.[ Slideshow: 2007's top underreported tech stories ]                                                    The use of e-mail-borne executable virus attachments dropped sharply in 2007. In particular, spammers have dialed back their use of so-called image spam, which tricks filters by embedding text within an attached image.According to IronPort Systems, outbreaks of viruses embedded in e-mail attachments totaled 860 in 2006 and 844 in 2005. But as of mid-October 2007, attacks totaled just 360. Dave Mayer, an IronPort product manager, said it?s likely that outbreaks will total 450 by the end of the year ? a drop of 47 percent. It appears that evildoers are moving on: ?Traditional viruses have been around for years, a long enough time to harden defenses against malicious attachments,? he said.Earlier in the year, IronPort, Symantec, and McAfee all noted that image spam, which appeared about two years ago, is waning, now that defenses have improved. Filters have now gotten better at scanning the contents of the attachments, leading spammers to link instead to images elsewhere.Mayer, whose company specializes in e-mail and Web security, says spammers are now placing those images on free photo-sharing sites ? the ones people use to send vacation photos to friends and family ? and embedding links to those images in their junk messages. These are difficult for spam filters to block because the same sites are used for legitimate photos as well.But as the abuse of e-mail attachments has declined, other types of threats have escalated. For example, outbreaks of macro viruses, aimed at Office-type applications, have risen by 50 percent to 60 percent while URL viruses climbed by at least 250 percent this year, IronPort found.The Bottom Line: It often seems as if the number of threats that you must be on guard against only increases, stretching your resources past the limits. But the truth is that threat profiles change over time, and some things you may be investing in are no longer as great a threat or are now handled by the tools you have in place. So, although you can?t get lax about security, you can focus more on newer threats.Complete list of 2007 underreported tech stories: 1.? Java is becoming the new Cobol 2.? Sun Microsystems is back in the game 3.? Hackers take aim at Mac OS X 4.? There are some threats you can worry less about 5.? Companies may have found a way around H-1B visa limits 6.? Open source?s new commercial strategy 7.? End-to-end Ethernet finally arrives 8.? Blade servers arrive for the masses 9.? BI is dead; long live BI 10. Balance of power shifts to software buyers
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Four more ISPs will start charging banks, e-commerce sites and other large e-mail senders for guaranteed delivery. Individuals, businesses and organizations can still send messages for free, but spam filters might gobble them up.
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Last Thursday&#39;s presidential debate was still in progress when the e-mails started trickling in from citizens around the country.
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With political activity skyrocketing on the web, election officials may be forced to regulate. Also: Yahoo stays strong and growing & hellip;. 7-Eleven joins 21st century & hellip;. and more.
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The sign-off of an e-mail message can be a land mine involving the subtleties of relationships and hierarchies.
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Originally conceived as a time-saving, productivity-enhancing tool, e-mail has matured into a time-wasting, productivity-draining smoking gun that can burden individuals and businesses alike.  According to research conducted by American Management Association and The ePolicy Institute, 10% of U.S.
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bulk messages clogging instant-messaging accounts. AOL and its Anti-Spam Alliance partners -- EarthLink, Microsoft, and Yahoo
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Another day, another filter-evading tactic from the spammer. This time, they're pitching their woo in the form of e-mail stationery "backgrounds," which aren't generally scanned by filtering tools. Experts say the trend is rising.
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My boy Howard Dean talks  about the next generation of politics:  "The destination of the Democratic Party means making it a party that can communicate with its supporters and with all Americans. Politics is at its best when we create and inspire a sense of community. The tools that were pioneered in my campaign -- like blogs, and meetups, and streaming video -- are just a start. We must use all of the power and potential of technology as part of an aggressive outreach to meet and include voters, to work with the state parties, and to influence media coverage."  The Internet will fundamentally change every aspect of society.  It started in how we developed software.  Open Source is starting  ...
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Plans to combat spam are in trouble because Microsoft wants too much power, argues technology analyst Bill Thompson. The internet relies on a large number of technical standards which define in precise and