Forum to release Internet 'good' and 'bad' lists
7th October 2004 (The Star)
By RASLAN SHARIF

PETALING JAYA: A so-called whitelist of spam- and virus -free local IP (Internet Protocol) addresses and a blacklist of spammers will be out next month.

The lists are being drawn up by a group of regulators, security agencies and service providers known as the Information Sharing Forum (ISF).

Set up in June, the forum is currently working on a database of local IP addresses deemed to be free of spam and viruses, according to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).

"We are still compiling the list," Adelina Iskandar, MCMC corporate communications head, told In.Tech last week.

Besides the whitelist, the ISF is also coming out with a blacklist of known spammers.

"The members of the ISF have agreed to share information (on the spammers)," Adelina said, adding that the blacklist would alert Internet services providers (ISPs) of spammers who have had their accounts terminated by other ISPs due to spam activities.

The group is headed by MCMC, and members include the ICT Security Division of the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu), National ICT Security Emergency Response Centre (Niser) and Malaysian Technical Standards Forum.

Service providers TIMENet, NTT MSC, Jaring, TM Net, Celcom, Maxis Communications and DiGi Telecommunications are also members.

The ISF has met three times to date, with both the whitelist and blacklist expected to be finalised at the fifth meeting scheduled for November, said Adelina.

The lists would be "dynamic," with changes depending on the status of the IP addresses they contain, she added.

Onus on ISPs

Besides the list, the ISF is also working on a standardised Acceptable Internet Use Policy and Internet Peering Policy for ISPs to adopt.

The final draft is up for discussion at the fourth ISF meeting scheduled for mid-October, said Adelina.

"We hope to finalise it by the end of the meeting," she added.

However, the completion of the Internet Peering Policy has some way to go, she said.

"The ISF only started discussions on the matter during the third meeting (early last month), and we foresee more discussions among the members before work on the policy begins," said Adelina.

The ISF is MCMC's latest initiative in its drive to combat Internet abuse. In a statement released in August, it said greater cooperation among the parties involved in the ISF would improve security analysis, warning, response and recovery, as well as minimise damage from online security attacks.

MCMC is also pushing for the introduction of regulations to control spam and other forms of unsolicited messages. ISPs such as Jaring and TM Net have recent months beefed up their capacity to block spam, which has seen a marked increase in volume over the past two years.

Spammers are believed to have recently ganged up with hackers to produce malicious code aimed at circumventing the antispam measures put in place by ISPs, according to some security experts.