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Internet unethical acts: Spam problem â€“ INVESTIGATION

Internet unethical acts: Spam problem â€“ <font color=red> INVESTIGATION </font>

27 October 2010 15:31 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ilhama Isabalayeva â€“ APA. There are precious few people in the world who donâ€™t use global network opportunities and e-mail in this century of information technologies. Everyone begins his working day by visiting e-mail and we are frequently facing with unknown letters called as â€œspamâ€ in the virtual world and always deleted. But experts said spam was not always harmful, it could be even positive.

â€œSpam is gubbish, delete it, butâ€¦.â€

Spam is a canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation, but this word entered the virtual world as â€œunwelcome letterâ€ after spreading of advertising mails in 1980s.
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social networking spam, television advertising and file sharing network spam.
Spamming remains economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous, and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions.
Chief of the legal and human resources department of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies Bakhtiyar Mammadov said that spam could be sent for fishing or stealing of personal data.
Spam takes 50-60% of e-mails, but it is not always harmful and should be deleted. President of Azerbaijan Internet Forum Osman GÃ¼ndÃ¼z said spam was not gubbish, it was unexpected letter. Sometimes it can bring some benefit like cheap shopping offers that give people an opportunity to save money.

Spam choosing Azerbaijan

US, Russia, Turkey and China are the largest spammer-countries. Azerbaijan is mostly recipient-country. Correlation between sent and received spam-messages in Azerbaijan is 1/100. Osman GÃ¼ndÃ¼z said some Internet providers were carrying out anti-spam activity using special programs which prevented messages sent by same point. Azerbaijan e-mail services â€“ box.az, inbox.az, Delta Telekom and hosting-center grouped all online resources of Azerbaijan contain anti-spam system.
GÃ¼ndÃ¼z said e-trade document also described some points related to spam problems â€œThe advertising mail should give an opportunity to the users to reject the proposal. According to the law, such mails should contain refusal opportunityâ€.

No special anti-spam legislation in Azerbaijan

Bakhtiyar Mammadov said there was no universal method of solution to spam problem. Each country has own anti-spam methods based on own experience. Some countries have anti-spam legislation. Convention on Cybercrime also assists the countries to establish joint cooperation in this field.
There is no special anti-spam legislation in Azerbaijan. Only Penal Code contains three articles about the damages on computer systems as a result of undesired interference. There are special regulated articles in the Administrative Violation Codes, but those articles donâ€™t contain points about spam or fishing.
ICT Information Centerâ€™s Director Farid Kazimov leading countries have already taken steps to solve these problems elaborating necessary legislation and struggling hackers and spammers within the law. Internet ethics have virtual character, but human activity there should be regulated by the international law, said Kazimov.

Refusal of @ and dot

IT expert Seymur Ismayilov said there is no way protecting from spam. The organizations or individuals can prevent only part of spam messages installing anti-spam program, but those systems cant not always select the messages. Users are not showing @ and . in their contact menu to avoid the spammerâ€™s attention.
Kazimov offers to use antivirus programs and other methods like CERT groups used in many countries. CERT groups are calculating Internet-attacks and exchanging information and as a result of close cooperation the organizations using CERT services can prevent possible cyber-attacks. There is a CERT group in Azerbaijan which is protecting the educational network.

Internet ethic code

The global Intenet community needs in common ethic code, said director of the Information Technologies Institute of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Rasim Aliguliyev. This code should protect interests of professional Internet communities, ordinary users and countries as well. Such document should prevent unethical behavior on Internet and present new ethic model to the users.