10 things companies should do about spam

3 steps to saving corporate online identity and email

Phishing examples, quotes, predictions,
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More about the power of squelching spam with TurnTide™

See the difference between filtering and squelching spam (pdf)

Why it's okay to say EMAIL CAN BE SPAM but it's dumb to say email can be SPAM

For lots of statistics about the spam problem, click.

Cobbs on Spam

Starting in 2000, Stephen Cobb worked with other industry leaders to develop practical solutions to the problem of spam. One notable success in this effort was the TurnTide anti-spam technology, acquired by Symantec in 2004. Other solutions that Stephen worked on, like simple technology to verify email senders, did not fare so well.

Times Up Bill!

"Two years from now, spam will be solved.” That's what Bill Gates told a select group of World Economic Forum participants on January 24, 2004. (CBS News)

Unless you have a miraculously spam-free mailbox you will likely agree that the various efforts to persuade the major Internet service providers to cooperate on a universal spam solution have not fared very well. Despite numerous announcements by major Internet service providers pledging to cooperate to end spam. the problem is still as bad as ever. (E.g. For the month of April, 2007, more than 93% of all email traffic was spam and viruses according to Postini, a Google company.)

Missed Opportunities?
If the major Internet service providers had acted together back in 2002, which is when ePrivacy Group was heavily involved in educating Microsoft MSN and other ISPs about the underlying dynamics of the spam problem, most spam could have been choked off long before Mr. Gates made his "solved by 2006" prediction. Indeed, 2006 could have dawned "spam-free" if people had taken our advice.

2002 was more than a missed opportunity for ISPs to alleviate spam's drain on the Internet economy; it actually left the door open to a new breed of email abuse, phishing scams. There was virtually no phishing activity in 2002, relatively little in 2003, but loads in 2004. Phishing is an extension of spam techniques and could have been squelched, along with the rest of spam, if the industry had chosen to cooperate to end spam rather than compete for customers based on promises of "better anti-spam than the other guys."

Right for the Wrong Reason?
Make no mistake, we would love to see spam disappear in 2005, but we doubt that it will. And if spam is "solved" before 2006, we sincerely doubt that the solution will have much to do with Microsoft (we'd love Redmond to prove us wrong--heck, we'd even eat a can of SPAM--but history does not provide many hopeful signs).

Speaking of history, the following links document some of the spam fighting efforts with which we were involved from 2001 to 2004.

Time to Stop Spam
Article by Stephen in Network World Security Newsletter, 8/19/03. Explains concepts behind spam "squelching," a strategy now embodied in the TurnTide™ Anti-spam Router.

Spam and Network Resource Theft Prevention
A whitepaper co-authored by Stephen (Acrobat pdf format). Explains how spammers steal IT resources and how new technology can prevent this.

Why Spam Filters Only Make Things Worse
A whitepaper by David Brussin and Tobias DiPasquale of ePrivacy Group (pdf format). Explains why filtering doesn't really stop spam, and why 'squelching' really does.

Trusted Email Open Standard
TEOS is a practical roadmap to a spam-free future. Co-authored by Stephen and colleagues at ePrivacy Group, endorsed by several consumer groups, TEOS offers enormous benefits for everyone who uses email. Find out why your ISP should back TEOS today (TEOS has been viewed 18,000 times since it was placed on the 'net at the beginning of May, 2003).

Trusted Sender™
Using patent-pending technology that is available today, Trusted Sender is one thing every company can implement right now to fight back against spam, email fraud, and corporate identity spoofing. It could even help government agencies such as Homeland Security protect against cyber-terrorism tactics like an email disinformation campaign aimed at hampering first responders.

The Multi-Billion Dollar Corporate Spam Threat
(and we are not talking about the cost of filtering)
Spammers regularly take the identities of leading companies in vain and perpetrate fraud in their name. Unless company executives take steps to help consumers distinguish legitimate email from fraudulent spam, they could face some tough consequences.

Press release on the New York spam verdict: 1/24/03
Stephen Cobb's reaction to a potentially landmark decision in a spam case in New York.

Cobb on the economics of spam: February, 2003
Until the "parasitic economics" of spam are reversed, spam will continue to grow (it is currently growing at 15 percent per month, at least) to the point where it overwhelms legitimate email. Understanding spam-e-nomics is the first step to solving the problem and reversing the trend.