Trying to keep e-mail safe and sound

Back when I thought sendmail was what you did after putting a stamp on the envelope, Paul Hoffman was director of the Internet Mail Consortium and exceedingly patient with Network World's new reporter on what was then the messaging beat. In the ensuing 10 years, Hoffman added the VPN Consortium to his virtual shingle and Buzz learned just enough about the subject matter to be dangerous.
 
Today Hoffman's involved in the launch of another vendor group, this time called the Domain Assurance Council. DAC is looking to bolster e-mail user confidence and see that more legitimate business correspondence finds its way through spam filters and to intended recipients by promoting domain-level accreditation and reputation services over methods based on IP addresses.
 
Directed by Hoffman and John Levine, the organization intends to work together on best practices and technical solutions, in particular the promotion of the Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) approach being championed by Yahoo and Cisco.
 
"DAC will also support the development of protocol standards to allow members to add new types of domain identity and reputation information so that these extensions are universally available to all consumers of the domain information, such ISPs, enterprise e-mail gateways and antispam solution vendors," the group says in its initial press release. (.pdf)
 
IronPort, Habeas and About Return Path, Inc., are the vendors spearheading this initiative. 

• E-commerce
• e-mail
• phishing
• spam