Dynamic Net Update on the battle against SPAM By Peter M. Abraham October 2003 You probably noticed an increase in overall SPAM getting through our systems starting September 15th. That was when Network Solutions (also known as Verisign) instituted their "Site Finder" system. "Site Finder" was meant to increase Network Solutions monopoly on domain names in the United States by forcing people who typed in the wrong domain name to a site they created. The problem with Network Solutions implementation of "Site Finder," was that it broke most SPAM fighting systems. While "Site Finder" caused so many problems to the Internet community that ICANN (the agency that empowers organizations that sell and manage domain name registrations) threatened Network Solutions with legal action. "Site Finder" caused anti-SPAM systems to fail, domain name services to fail, and other crucial Internet components to fail. When Network Solutions obeyed the formal ICANN demand after ignoring a complaint by ICANN and stopped "Site Finder," SPAM prevention systems went back to normal. With Network Solutions suspending "Site Finder" to avoid losing the ability to sell and manage domain names, you should have seen a decrease in SPAM some time after October 3, 2003. To be clear, this decrease is in relation to the increase you probably saw starting September 15. In recent news, on October 15, 2003 the following news tidbit was posted on Yahoo.com's technology news area: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New York Sen. Charles Schumer released a poll on Wednesday showing that many Americans support his proposal for a "do not spam" registry, even though it has made little headway in Washington. In terms of our recent efforts, we have done the following: During the week of October 6, we set up several real time black hole lists from http://www.blackholes.us/ to block SPAM email from Brazil and Chinanet (an ISP in China that is prevalent in allowing SPAM to be sent through their services). During the week of October 13, we added Korea and Hong Kong from http://www.blackholes.us/. We also created our own real time black hole list based on actual SPAM we receive at Dynamic Net, and as reported by select customers using the procedures outlined on http://www.dynamicnet.net/customer/spam/index.htm. Your input is priceless. If you feel that there are machines being blocked by using data from http://www.blackholes.us/, we can unblock those machines. While I state this fact, please note we also use RBL's from other sources; and those RBL's do require a procedure to be completed for delisting. If you would like to participate in our program to cut down SPAM to all Dynamic Net customers through the building up of our own real time black hole service, please review the information on http://www.dynamicnet.net/customer/spam/index.htm, and follow the steps listed on that page. While no company, including ours, can promise zero SPAM at this present time frame, we are working diligently to ensure you have the last SPAM in your box; and that, any SPAM that ends up in your box is properly tagged as SPAM. Thank you.