US aims to plug global spam holes
By electricnews.net
Posted: 03/02/2004 at 11:13 GMT
Stay up to date wherever you are, with The Register Mobile
The US Federal Trade Commission has announced an international initiative
to fight spam, which will focus on closing off the unsecured servers used
by spammers.
The FTC is to work with 36 different agencies in 26 countries on its new
programme, entitled Operation Secure Your Server. The initiative is
designed to coordinate an international effort to reduce the flow of
unsolicited commercial email by urging organisations to close open relays
and open proxies, which are often used by spammers to send unsolicited
email.
Participating agencies have identified tens of thousands of owners or
operators of potentially open relay or open proxy servers around the world;
the agencies are sending letters urging the owners and operators to protect
themselves from unwittingly relaying spam.
Open relays and open proxies are servers that allow any computer in the
world to route email through servers of other organisations, thereby
disguising its real origin. The FTC said that these abuses not only
overload servers, but also could damage an unwitting firm's reputation if
it appears that the business sent the spam.
"International cooperation is going to play an important role in combating
spam, as this project clearly demonstrates. Moreover, government cannot
solve the spam problem on its own; everyone with an Internet connection
must do their part to make sure that they are part of the solution and not
part of the problem," said Howard Beales, director of the FTC's Bureau of
Consumer Protection.
"Any move to reduce the flow of spam is to be welcomed. We're happy that
the FTC is now taking a line that looks at the international situation,
rather than focussing solely on US citizens," said a spokesperson for the
Irish Data Protection Commissioner. The spokesperson said that a European
Commission delegation is due to meet the FTC on Wednesday and further news
on cooperation may emerge after the meeting.
Agencies in Albania, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Bulgaria,
Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Hungary, Jamaica,
Japan, Lithuania, Norway, Panama, Peru, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, South
Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom are sponsoring the
initiative along with the FTC.
The FTC has also created a Web page http://www.ftc.gov/secureyourserver
that contains information for businesses on how to protect themselves from
becoming unwitting distributors of spam.