Standards group takes aim at spam

An influential internet standards-setting body has begun a close scrutiny of the mounting problem of spam, in an effort that could have wide-ranging implications for future email use and security.

An official Anti-Spam Research Group - a US-based body - has been convened under the auspices of the Internet Research Task Force, a loose organisation affiliated with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The IETF has traditionally been responsible for standardising basic net technologies such as email, data transfer protocols and internet addresses, among a host of other issues.

The new group is an open research body without any policy setting power, but its findings could ultimately change the way email is handled by internet service providers and networks.

"Once considered a nuisance, spam has grown to account for a large percentage of the mail volume on the internet," the group's website reads. "The purpose of the (research group) is to understand the problem and collectively propose and evaluate solutions to the problem."

The research group is a potentially influential voice in a mounting chorus calling for new approaches to an epidemic of spam. According to spam-fighter Brightmail, unsolicited bulk mail volumes skyrocketed last year, now accounting for close to a third of all traffic on the internet, up from just eight per cent in mid-2001.

A handful of companies, including Brightmail and CipherMail, provide network or desktop tools aimed at identifying and weeding out spam before it clogs email boxes.

Those efforts have exacerbated an arms race between bulk emailers and anti-spam forces, however. Spammers have become increasingly creative in masking their messages in ways that will evade the filters and may appear to recipients to be legitimate messages.

Filtering techniques have also, in some cases, been too draconian, angering some net customers who say they have lost significant amounts of genuine mail. A new group formed by commercial email marketers last month is soliciting reports of consumers' lost mail, saying it is trying to help the filter companies become more accurate.

The new Anti-Spam Working Group, formed late last month, will focus first on classifying different kinds of spam and anti-spam proposals, according to the group's charter. Possible ideas to explore are ways of building in consent policies for different types of communications and allowing networks or individuals to reject email that does not meet particular standards.

The group will also study ways to track down spammers, who are often difficult to identify.

Most of these ideas would require changes in basic email technology, a process that could take several years or more in front of the IETF standards body if the ideas prove to be controversial.

The task force will hold its first meeting March 20 at the IETF's San Francisco gathering. An email list has already been set up to discuss the issues.

John Borland writes for News.com