Posted: 24th May, 2004 By: MarkJ
Software giant Microsoft has begun talks with ISP AOL in an attempt to combine their anti-SPAM (junk e-mail) methods so as to better combat the current flood. AOL currently backs Sender Policy Framework (SPF) while MS supports Caller ID:
George Webb, group manager of Microsoft's anti-spam technology and strategy team, said last Friday that it has been working with the people behind SPF, or Sender Policy Framework, a proposed standard for verifying the domain of an email sender and prevent mail forgery. Microsoft wants to combine that system with its own Caller ID for Email, which has the same goal with a slightly different approach.
The cooperative effort comes as Microsoft is seeking industry support for Caller ID. On Thursday, it submitted the proposal to industry standards body Internet Engineering Task Force for consideration as a standard. SPF has been under review by the IETF for several months.
The two methods are designed to ensure that the sender's return email address is real. They allow Internet service providers to check the authenticity of incoming email by verifying it with records from the domain name system database.The
ZDNet item notes that domain-spoofing SPAM is estimated to account for roughly 50% of all junk messages.