Microsoft has debuted its MSN Postmaster Web site, which offers tools and services designed to combat spam.
MSN Postmaster marks the software giant's latest effort to increase its presence in the security arena, a lucrative area that has attracted a large swathe of competitors.
Postmaster is an online resource that offers tools to help ISPs, email service providers and legitimate bulk emailers combat junk email, streamline the reporting process for spam and assist in delivering legitimate bulk email to MSN Hotmail users.
It will also include the software giant's new Smart Network Data Services, which will provide reports on the types of email being sent to MSN Hotmail accounts. The tracking service will inform ISPs of the volume of email being sent from their IP address to MSN Hotmail users and the percentage of it tagged as spam — either by Hotmail filters or by the user themselves.
With that information, ISPs can identify and clean compromised PCs and question bulk emailers to determine whether they are spammers.
Kevin Doerr, product unit manager for MSN Hotmail, said in a statement: "MSN Postmaster and Smart Network Data Services represent a move by Microsoft toward broader, more comprehensive and transparent information-sharing with ISPs and email senders."
Security experts say ISPs are reluctant to shut down customers' accounts, even if they appear to be inadvertently pumping out spam. For ISPs, shutting down a customer's account means lost revenue while they try to determine whether or not the email their customer is distributing is legitimate.
Talkback
What would help is less zombied PC's. In other words, less Windows PC users that are easily tricked into becoming spam bots. But that would mean that Microsoft would have to produce and provide effective security to existing customers without turning them into new customers at the same time. That will not happen so that's why they're trying to offload the work they should have done in the first place into someone elses problem (who ofcourse will get the blame for doing a bad job the next time something breaks out for the worse).
As such ISP's are better advised to install Open Source anti-spam solutions running on robust platforms to check all incoming and outgoing mail with within their systems. Success rates of almost 100% with zero false positives are possible then without the requirement for massive amount of man hours, commercial licenses or attached strings.
PREVENTING VIOLATIONS BY AGGRESSIVE DEFENCE
The concept of counterstrike through aggressive defence presupposes the adoption and use of information technology to produce legitimate and legalized disabling and reasonably destructive effects. Some adopted measures completely destroys the functioning of the offending computer while others simply disable the computer for the time being by either shutting it down or making it temporarily non-functional. Thus, the adopted measure to gain public support and legitimacy must be “proportionate” to the harm that could have caused had that measure not been adopted. For instance, the shutting down of the computer of the person using the malware is permissible whereas the destruction or procurement of data and information stored in such computer, having no connection and association with that malware, may not be commensurate with the protection requirements. Such destruction or procurement of data may be unlawful and perhaps exceed the limits of self-defence. Thus, technology adopted must not only be safe and effective, but it must also be “ legal and law-abiding”. A countermeasure, which is not very accurate, and law abiding would be a remedy worst than the malady and hence it should be avoided. For instance, if a virus has been launched by using a public server, then by disabling that server the genuine and legitimate users will be unnecessarily harassed and they would be denied the services which they are otherwise entitled to. Thus, the countermeasure measure adopted must be job specific and not disproportionate to the injury sought to be remedied . We must, thus, not forget that self-help measures are “watchdogs and not blood-hounds”, and their purpose should be restricted to legitimate and proportionate defensive actions only.