The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has created
the Anti-Spam Research Group (ASRG) to look for new ways to banish
unwanted e-mail.
The IETF, the main standards body for the internet, has created
the ASRG under its research wing, the Internet Research Task Force,
which explores various issues for the IETF and seeks answers to
Internet-related problems.
"The problem of spam has tremendously altered the way we use the
Internet," said the chairman of the new research task force, Paul
Judge, who is also director of research and development for
CipherTrust. "It's now common to see that half of all Internet
traffic is spam."
Many of today's commercial antispam products deal with the
problem locally on a server or PC by filtering e-mail and trying to
sort it into wanted messages and spam. "But that really doesn't
solve the problem globally, because all those messages are still
travelling the internet, hogging bandwidth," Judge said.
The group will re-examine the problem and existing anti-spam
products in an effort to find new spam controls. Some fixes may not
involve much more than tweaking existing protocols or technologies
in new ways.
"People really haven't taken a research approach or view of the
spam problem," Judge said. "There's a large audience seeking
solutions to this problem."
He cited internet service providers, businesses and mail system
suppliers as all having a vested interest in devising new
solutions. One idea, he said, would be to devise anti-spam tools
that could communicate consent or a denial for an incoming e-mail
before it even reaches a corporate firewall or user's mailbox.
"We're not looking for a buy-in from the spammers," he
said."We're looking for an infrastructure that will give protection
to the users."
Judge said he hoped to have some answers by the end of the year.
Although the research group will not create new internet-related
standards, its work can be used by the IETF to do so later on.
Analysts called the move good news, but were mixed on whether it
will succeed. Eric Hemmendinger, an analyst at Aberdeen Group
called the decision "a small milestone" but added, "Let's not
overrate it."
He added that some technical innovations may come up, but that
would depend on whether they can be implemented by suppliers or
will make sense to IT leaders trying to run businesses more
efficiently.
Hemmendinger said that with so many antispam products already on
the market, the research group may be too little, too late.
"They're already past the opportunity to have dealt with
standards," he said.
Chad Robinson, an analyst at Robert Frances Group , said the
group's success would depend on whether it could find answers
quickly. If it took too long to reach a consensus, the problem
would worsen and the group would not have a big impact. "I view
this work as important, but only as a step in the right
direction."
Michael Osterman, an analyst at Osterman Research, was more
hopeful. "The market is very much in flux. There can really be an
advantage to a standards-based approach to this [problem]. Some
solutions today are very good. I could see standards only improving
that."
The Anti-Spam Research Group's first gathering will be on 20
March during the IETF's 56th conference in San Francisco.