Should Microsoft own antispam?

WASHINGTON--Internet companies said Tuesday that they're racing to roll out better methods to block junk e-mail, but have not resolved long-standing differences over how much influence Microsoft will have over the final technology.

Microsoft's effort to convince the Internet Engineering Task Force to adopt its patented technology for e-mail authentication failed in September amid concerns it would cede too much control over the future of worldwide correspondence to one company. Since then, no progress has been made toward a resolution, engineers and lawyers said at a summit convened here by the Federal Trade Commission and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Key Internet standards currently are "freely available, no patent licensing from Microsoft," said Daniel Quinlan, a vice president of the Apache Software Foundation. "We want to make sure it stays that way for e-mail and other important parts of the Internet."

Quinlan's group, a nonprofit association, maintains the popular SpamAssassin software. In a statement, the foundation said Microsoft's proposal to authenticate senders of e-mail messages was "expressly incompatible" with the way the open-source development and distribution process works.

The summit, which ends Wednesday, comes as U.S. companies are becoming increasingly concerned about the problem of junk e-mail and "phishing" solicitations for personal data.

Some summit participants said they didn't care what standard was adopted--as long as it stopped the flow of fraudulent e-mail and Viagra solicitations. Visa, for instance, said Tuesday that it strongly endorsed the concept of e-mail authentication methods--but didn't reveal whether it preferred Microsoft's Sender ID, Yahoo's DomainKeys, or Cisco Systems' Identified Internet Mail.

David Kaefer, a director of Microsoft's patent licensing office, said Apache and other open-source advocates were ignoring "commercial realities" that require his employer to retain substantial control over its patents.

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You should care about the license...

by rdean November 9, 2004 6:09 PM PST

You should care about the license...

Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. Letting them dictate the terms upon which everyone can implement Sender ID is like leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Leaving alone the fundamental problem with software patents, it should NEVER be acceptable for a core internet standard to be encumbered by any patents. If Tim Berners-Lee had patented HTTP, the Internet would be a collection of islands with incompatible standards. The browser as a universal tool of information browsing would never have become viable.

It should be made clear to Microsoft that it can have its patents OR a standard. Which is in society's greater good?

Reply to this comment

Microsoft is holding the world back -- or so they think

by ttul November 9, 2004 7:52 PM PST

Microsoft is holding the world back -- or so they think

By insisting on keeping its patents on SenderID-related technology, Microsoft thinks it is holding the world back and that one day the IETF and everyone else will cave in to their demands.

First of all, no one cares. The patented bits of SenderID (namely the PRA part) are unnecessary. The XML bloat has been factored out. What's left behind is a very workable and simple standard called SPF.

Surprise, it's the standard invented by members of a more progressive and open community -- one that does not believe in the use of patents as a yoke against the success of others.

Microsoft will not succeed in its efforts to poison the IETF with its patented garbage standards. I applaud the work of the Apache Software Foundation and others in their continuing commitment to truly free software.

And by they way, a small but noteworthy company in this game is MailChannels (www.mailchannels.com). Their technology has the potential to make SPF and other standards really relevant for organizations whose only reliable "filtering" technique is sender identity.

Reply to this comment

email security info for newbies like me..

by March 24, 2005 4:23 AM PST

email security info for newbies like me..

I am a very new to computer technology (about a year old)and still learning. I been having problems with my email, maybe it's because I don't know much about it in the first place. But especially with all this phishing & email routing thats happening today I'm a little paranoid reading my emails or just using the enternet, but by seeing these sites and reading their information provided by teachers/big brothers of the enternet information world, thats you guys. Really helps me ALOT and gives me back some sense of security. Aside from all that mushy stuff I'm just trying to say that I really appreciate what you guys are doing in helping new guys like me stand up to the playground bullies like microsoft and whateverels is out there..

thanks fellas keep up the good work & thanks for standing people like me who are barely learning how to walk...

kev711

Getting rid of SPAM.

by November 15, 2004 10:51 AM PST

Getting rid of SPAM.

Getting rid of spam should be easy, if one rises above the implementation debate. It's kind of like wanting to reduce the number of drivers who speed, then spending years investigating photo radar, hand held radar, lasers etc. Just increase the fines to a prohibitive level and problem will go away. I wouldn't break the speed limit if the fine was $10,000, and I sure wouldn't send spam if the fine was $10,000 per email.

Reply to this comment

Microsoft should leave standards to professionals, and profits be damned.

by ecsd November 24, 2004 1:56 PM PST

Microsoft should leave standards to professionals, and profits be damned.

The internet does not run on proprietary protocols, and never should. If Microsoft wants people to adopt its ideas as a standard, then Microsoft must abandon any hope of profit from the ideas, and merely grant the ideas to the world as have so many others whose work has made the internet the success it is today. Microsoft (employees) write an RFC, and that's the end to it.

From the story:

''David Kaefer, a director of Microsoft's patent licensing office, said Apache and other open-source advocates were ignoring "commercial realities" that require his employer to retain substantial control over its patents.''

Kaefer doesn't explain why there needs to be a patent in the first place.

(Kaefer continues:)
''"Intellectual property is not just an inconvenience that can be ignored," Kaefer said. "We're starting to see patent issues and open-source issues coming together...There are commercial realities that come along with that."
''

And further on in the story:

''Sender ID combines a previous proposal called Sender Policy Framework, or SPF--authored by Meng Wong, chief technology officer at Pobox.com--with Microsoft's follow-on "Caller ID for E-Mail Technology."''

How much more do we need to witness? Here's Microsoft /incorporating Meng Wong's SPF/ into their own protocol proposal. They can do that because SPF is an open standard, just as Microsoft created its first browser and server by bodily copying Mosaic and the NCSA server code. So far as I know, Microsoft is not lining Meng Wong's pockets with its appreciation. So much for intellectual 'property' - that wasn't backed up by lawyers.

I'd offer that Microsoft doesn't understand "open reality": open source software is superior to its proprietary counterparts; international standards are either superior to their proprietary counterparts, or where not, they /can be made so, openly./ The world does not need Microsoft whatsoever, and they had better start understanding that and behaving like genuine MENSCHEN. Any and all offers of standards and practices from Microsoft should be IGNORED and REFUSED until the stuff offered is no longer PROPRIETARY. I know that Microsoft (and most other large corporations) would like to make money by selling us things we already have ready access to, but of course that's silly, and nobody should reward them by being suckered in. If they won't GIVE IT AWAY, then they should GO AWAY. And leave the rest of us alone, Please.

-ecsd

Berkeley, California

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[rdean]

You should care about the license...

Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. Letting them dictate the terms upon which everyone can implement Sender ID is like leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Leaving alone the fundamental problem with software patents, it should NEVER be acceptable for a core internet standard to be encumbered by any patents. If Tim Berners-Lee had patented HTTP, the Internet would be a collection of islands with incompatible standards. The browser as a universal tool of information browsing would never have become viable.

It should be made clear to Microsoft that it can have its patents OR a standard. Which is in society's greater good?

[ttul]

Microsoft is holding the world back -- or so they think

By insisting on keeping its patents on SenderID-related technology, Microsoft thinks it is holding the world back and that one day the IETF and everyone else will cave in to their demands.

First of all, no one cares. The patented bits of SenderID (namely the PRA part) are unnecessary. The XML bloat has been factored out. What's left behind is a very workable and simple standard called SPF.

Surprise, it's the standard invented by members of a more progressive and open community -- one that does not believe in the use of patents as a yoke against the success of others.

Microsoft will not succeed in its efforts to poison the IETF with its patented garbage standards. I applaud the work of the Apache Software Foundation and others in their continuing commitment to truly free software.

And by they way, a small but noteworthy company in this game is MailChannels (www.mailchannels.com). Their technology has the potential to make SPF and other standards really relevant for organizations whose only reliable "filtering" technique is sender identity.

email security info for newbies like me..

I am a very new to computer technology (about a year old)and still learning. I been having problems with my email, maybe it's because I don't know much about it in the first place. But especially with all this phishing & email routing thats happening today I'm a little paranoid reading my emails or just using the enternet, but by seeing these sites and reading their information provided by teachers/big brothers of the enternet information world, thats you guys. Really helps me ALOT and gives me back some sense of security. Aside from all that mushy stuff I'm just trying to say that I really appreciate what you guys are doing in helping new guys like me stand up to the playground bullies like microsoft and whateverels is out there..

thanks fellas keep up the good work & thanks for standing people like me who are barely learning how to walk...

kev711

Getting rid of SPAM.

Getting rid of spam should be easy, if one rises above the implementation debate. It's kind of like wanting to reduce the number of drivers who speed, then spending years investigating photo radar, hand held radar, lasers etc. Just increase the fines to a prohibitive level and problem will go away. I wouldn't break the speed limit if the fine was $10,000, and I sure wouldn't send spam if the fine was $10,000 per email.

[ecsd]

Microsoft should leave standards to professionals, and profits be damned.

The internet does not run on proprietary protocols, and never should. If Microsoft wants people to adopt its ideas as a standard, then Microsoft must abandon any hope of profit from the ideas, and merely grant the ideas to the world as have so many others whose work has made the internet the success it is today. Microsoft (employees) write an RFC, and that's the end to it.

From the story:

''David Kaefer, a director of Microsoft's patent licensing office, said Apache and other open-source advocates were ignoring "commercial realities" that require his employer to retain substantial control over its patents.''

Kaefer doesn't explain why there needs to be a patent in the first place.

(Kaefer continues:)
''"Intellectual property is not just an inconvenience that can be ignored," Kaefer said. "We're starting to see patent issues and open-source issues coming together...There are commercial realities that come along with that."
''

And further on in the story:

''Sender ID combines a previous proposal called Sender Policy Framework, or SPF--authored by Meng Wong, chief technology officer at Pobox.com--with Microsoft's follow-on "Caller ID for E-Mail Technology."''

How much more do we need to witness? Here's Microsoft /incorporating Meng Wong's SPF/ into their own protocol proposal. They can do that because SPF is an open standard, just as Microsoft created its first browser and server by bodily copying Mosaic and the NCSA server code. So far as I know, Microsoft is not lining Meng Wong's pockets with its appreciation. So much for intellectual 'property' - that wasn't backed up by lawyers.

I'd offer that Microsoft doesn't understand "open reality": open source software is superior to its proprietary counterparts; international standards are either superior to their proprietary counterparts, or where not, they /can be made so, openly./ The world does not need Microsoft whatsoever, and they had better start understanding that and behaving like genuine MENSCHEN. Any and all offers of standards and practices from Microsoft should be IGNORED and REFUSED until the stuff offered is no longer PROPRIETARY. I know that Microsoft (and most other large corporations) would like to make money by selling us things we already have ready access to, but of course that's silly, and nobody should reward them by being suckered in. If they won't GIVE IT AWAY, then they should GO AWAY. And leave the rest of us alone, Please.

-ecsd

Berkeley, California