asia.internet.com Realtime News for IT Managers

asia.internet.com Realtime News for IT Managers: "July 8, 2004
Experts Question UN's Anti-Spam Plan
By Jim Wagner

Suggestions from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) conference about how to fight spam has an anti-spam expert questioning whether spam can really be wiped out.
Matt Cain, META Group's senior vice president of content and collaboration strategies, said the underlying e-mail framework, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol , makes eradicating spam nearly impossible.
'It's highly unlikely, close to a pipe dream,' he said of proposals that purport to eradicate spam. 'I think it'll be a perennial problem, but I think organizations have to erect substantial defenses against spam using a variety of techniques. Spam will [be reduced] to a manageable level, but it will be a persistent menace.'
Cain's comments followed reports from the ITU/World Summit on the Information Society's (WSIS) Thematic Meeting on Countering Spam, taking place in Geneva this week. "