Dulles, VA - Monday, October 25, 2004 - America Online, Inc. issued
the following statement today in relation to email authentication
technology, which is designed to help reduce unwanted junk email,
phishing, and spoofing of email on the internet:
Laptop Battery "Today is an important day in the joint, collaborative effort by
antispam partners in the online industry to test and develop email
authentication technologies that help further address the ongoing
spam menace.
"America Online is today announcing its support of the newly
submitted version of an email authentication technology known as
Sender ID and advanced by our key partner in the antispam crusade,
Microsoft Corporation.
Thinkpad "This announcement is indicative of the evolutionary process
that occurs in the email authentication debate, as specifications
necessarily change and mature to include as many participants as
possible. AOL has always indicated that flexibility is critical in
the testing phase, so that opportunities might arise to allow email
authentication technologies to be more inclusive, adaptable, and
attractive to the broadest possible groups of participants.
Microsoft "Since AOL became the very first major, national ISP to begin
testing an email authentication technology in December 2003, we
have worked cooperatively and collaboratively with many in the
industry to develop and test different email authentication
technologies - all of which share the exact same goal of providing
assurances to consumers and online industry leaders that an email
sender's domain can be checked reliably in an effort to help curb
spam, and phishing attacks.
Laptop Computers "It's important to note that these technologies do not reduce
spam by themselves, but help create an environment online where
certain kinds of spamming, spoofing, and phishing become more
difficult as new layers of authentication are added to the email
process.
Laptop Computer "On September 15th, AOL announced that it would not move forward
with the deployment of SenderID technology, because we had
reservations at that time about the specific version that had been
submitted. Namely, the fact that Sender ID at that time lacked
'backwards compatibility', which meant that all of the development
work AOL and many others had put into the email authentication
testing process would be cast aside by the new version of Sender
ID.
Desktop Computer "We relayed those concerns directly to Microsoft and others in
the online industry - such as members of the Messaging Anti-Abuse
Working Group (MAAWG) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
community.
Notebooks "Today, a new Sender ID version is being submitted to the IETF
that we believe fully addresses and answers AOL's concerns, and
those of many others in the online industry as well who shared
those concerns.
Lenovo "We welcome and applaud Microsoft for its efforts, and we
continue to be encouraged by the way the online community has come
together to help make online communications safer and more secure
for the global Internet and for our members. The new Sender ID
specification is, without a doubt, proof that the standards process
can work well from a collaborative efforts standpoint. But more
progress can be made, and much more work is to be done.
Hard Drive "Specifically, this now allows those of us who have been testing
an email authentication technology known as SPF - or Sender Policy
Framework - to be included in the Sender ID specification moving
forward. This means that the over 100,000 domains publishing SPF v1
records - including AOL - will not need to change their DNS
listings, and will have the option of checking the 821 Return-Path
header as part of the Sender ID framework. This saves AOL and many
others a great deal of time, resources, and development work.
Travelstar "AOL is now participating in the testing of Sender ID by
publishing our record in both SPF v1 and v2 formats. AOL will begin
testing 822 FROM domains on our inbound system according to the
Sender ID specification by the end of 2004. AOL plans to publish
results of this testing to the internet community at large, at the
appropriate time.
Gateway "AOL will continue to pursue testing of many different
technologies to enhance sender identification in email, including
Yahoo!'s "Domain Keys" and others. But such technologies are all
experimental technologies - which have either limited, or no
implementation experience on the global internet. Many other
promising technologies abound in this rapidly developing technology
area. In addition to Domain Keys, there is also Cisco Systems'
"Identified Internet Mail", the "Client SMTP Validation (CSV)", and
more. We also fully expect reputation and accreditation systems to
emerge, which will utilize sender identification technologies to
actually have an impact on spammers themselves and related
fraudsters.
Laptop Parts "AOL looks forward to the ongoing analysis and testing of these
technologies so that - in the end - the results will meet our high
standards of feasibility, acceptance, and security for our members
and online consumers in general.
Software "AOL also looks forward to presenting these views and others at
the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) email authentication summit in
November, along with our industry partners."
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