Spam fighters connect at JamSpam
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The goal of the forum, called JamSpam, is "to produce an open, interoperable antispam specification that serves as a universal solution to both edges of the spam sword," according to the group's mission statement. On one side, there are clear losses to corporate network resources and people's time; and on the other, there are rising unquantifiable losses from legitimate e-mail that goes missing from spam filters.
While the group has yet to formalize or outline an agenda to fight spam, attendees of the forum all have a strong incentive to begin a cooperative discussion about technological solutions to various pieces of the problem. The companies are meeting at a time when junk mail has grown to epidemic proportions. Stephanie Fossan, a senior product manager for EarthLink who attended the all-day meeting, said that the ISP has seen the amount of incoming spam grow about 500 percent in the last 18 months.
"We're here because spam is the No. 1 problem on the Internet and it affects all of us," said Vincent Schiavone, president of ePrivacy Group. "The solution is not technological, not legal, not standardization, but a combination of all of them and it requires cooperation."
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Some of the answers discussed at the meeting included developing e-mail authentication standards to ensure that legitimate messages are recognized and delivered securely, according to Philip Hallam-Baker, principal scientist at VeriSign, an Internet infrastructure provider.
EarthLink's Fossan said that in a special meeting of ISPs and "in-box providers" such as Yahoo's Web-based e-mail, the various companies discussed technological solutions to closing "open relays," which are insecure servers that spammers use to send bulk mail. Companies also are interested in building a system where there is more "transparency" for legitimate messages sent, for instance, discerning whether the e-mail is a newsletter, a bill from an e-commerce site or a message from a friend.
"Everybody is getting on the same page here," Fossan said. "Spam is not one monolithic problem with one monolithic answer, but something that can be fixed in pieces."