Bill Gates Details New Technology To Fight Spam
Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, promising to put an end to spam as "a major problem" for computer users, detailed an antispam technology road map in an e-mail to customers.
Though the company has used e-mail filtering technology called SmartScreen to reduce spam with its MSN and Hotmail services and its Outlook 2003 software, Mr. Gates wrote that spam remains "a costly drain on time and resources and, as a carrier of worms and viruses, a significant threat to computer security." He declared that "filtering technologies are not enough."
Mr. Gates said Microsoft is adding tools that would combat the forgery of e-mail sender addresses and allow senders to "qualify" their messages so they can guarantee delivery. Microsoft is working with heavyweights Yahoo Inc., EarthLink Inc. and the America Online Inc. unit of Time WarnerInc. The four companies June 22 said they would begin testing technologies for authenticating e-mail senders' identities this summer and urged other e-mail system operators to participate.
The companies say that establishing sender identity would allow them to filter out e-mail blights more effectively, while reliable "safe" lists would keep them from blocking fewer wanted messages. As a first step, Microsoft is championing a technology for verifying sender domain names called Sender ID, which is a hybrid of its Caller ID technology and a similar technology called SPF that was championed by America Online.
In addition, Mr. Gates said Microsoft is developing technologies to detect and block "dictionary attacks," in which spammers send e-mail to a random assortment of names associated with a company or e-mail provider and then harvest the real addresses by culling those that generate bounce-back messages. Microsoft also is looking to give customers tools for identifying virus-infected personal computers, known as "zombies," that have become unwitting spam relay points.
Separately, Microsoft said it will offer up to $104.6 million in product vouchers to settle a class-action lawsuit in Arizona, the latest in a string of settlements over charges that the company used its monopoly power to charge too much for software.
盖茨详细阐述反垃圾邮件技术的战略
微软公司(Microsoft Corp., MSFT)董事长比尔?盖茨(Bill Gates)周一在致客户的一封电子邮件中详细阐述了公司反垃圾邮件技术的战略，他此前允诺将结束垃圾邮件对电脑用户造成的困扰。
微软客户去年能体会到的公司技术的演进就是在MSN、Hotmail以及Outlook 2003中应用的SmartScreen电子邮件过滤技术。盖茨表示，目前，Hotmail每日屏蔽近30亿条垃圾邮件信息，占其收到电子邮件总数的95%。
盖茨表示，尽管过滤技术不断进步，但垃圾邮件数量的增长意味著其将大量消耗时间与资源；而由于垃圾邮件可能携带蠕虫和病毒，这也对电脑安全造成显著威胁。他表示，过滤技术已经不能满足要求。
盖茨允诺，将继续增加SmartScreen的新功能，其中包括可以自动升级以便客户能轻松获得最新版本。但是，他表示，微软还把研发重点集中于其他技术，以限制垃圾电子邮件的传播，其中包括可以打击伪造电子邮件发送者地址的工具。
微软已经和数家公司合作启动了一项打击伪造电子邮件发送者地址的战役。这几家公司分别为雅虎公司(Yahoo Inc., YHOO)、EarthLink Inc. (ELNK)以及时代华纳公司(Time Warner Inc., TWX)旗下子公司美国在线(America Online Inc.)。以上四家公司上周二表示，它们将在今年夏季开始测试验证电子邮件发送者身份的技术，并敦促其他电子邮件系统运营商参与该计划。
盖茨表示，标准技术的推广将是曝光垃圾邮件炮制者伎俩的重要一步。微软预计，所有垃圾邮件中有一半邮件伪造地址。Anti-Phishing Working Group上周五表示，至少95%的垃圾电子邮件是伪造地址的。
以上公司表示，建立发送者身份验证系统将使得它们更为有效地过滤垃圾电子邮件，而可靠的安全清单将使得被屏蔽掉的有用邮件越来越少。
微软将一项名为Sender ID的技术作为第一步，该技术能够验证发送者的域名，这是其Caller ID技术与美国在线推崇的被称为SPF的类似技术的混合体。微软考虑将基于密码的更有力的验证方法作为第二步，这种方法包括雅虎被称为DomainKeys的技术。
但微软还建议，开发未知发送者能够证明自己不是垃圾邮件发送者的技术和发送者鉴定系统，以使得它们不被过滤系统屏蔽。
