Thursday, 24 May 2007

New Antiphishing, Antispam Specifications Unveiled

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has made available an e-mail authentication tool that aims to combat phishing and Spam. This tool was specifically designed for DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)—a new technology that combines several existing antiphishing and antispam methods to create an improved way to sort and identify legitimate e-mail.

"Domain names are far more stable than IP addresses," said Dave Crocker, an IT consultant and contributor to the DKIM project. "Domain names align with an organisation far better than an IP address."

"It allows a piece of e-mail to be identified definitively as somebody's," rather than as an e-mail coming from an IP address that could used by multiple people or a Spam bot," he said. "It's a step along the way to regaining trust in e-mail," Crocker added.