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SCMP Reporter

Measures taken by international groups to combat junk e-mail have led to a new block against Hong Kong's largest Internet service provider.

Pacific Century CyberWorks' (PCCW) Netvigator service was blacklisted on Sunday. This could have left customers unable to communicate with many parts of the Internet. Netvigator's broadband and dial-up services have 830,000 subscribers.

However, PCCW spokesman Joan Wagner told Technology Post  that the mail server in question, an internal server used by Netvigator's platform engineers, 'was disabled as soon as our engineers discovered that the server could be abused. We have contacted the Orbs database to ensure the IP address is removed.'

The Orbs database, which instigated the block, lists insecure mail servers capable of being used to send spam messages. The full effect of an Orbs listing can take several weeks to be felt, as international ISPs generally update their filters periodically.

Between 300,000 and 500,000 mail servers worldwide use the Orbs list.

Recent months have seen a sharp rise in the volume of spam e-mails sent from Hong Kong, and many anti-spam activists have blamed Netvigator.

Ms Wagner rejected such criticism. 'As you would expect Netvigator has a strict policy on spam, and our mail servers do not allow our customers to do open relay,' she said.

Other local Internet firms have also drawn criticism.

Sun Hung Kai's iAdvantage hosting business already has a number of its machines listed in both Orbs and the more aggressive Maps blackhole list.

Several blacklist entries resulted from its hosting of Zentek International.

It is an Internet firm which has provided services to several established spam businesses.

Following a report on the issue in last week's South China Morning Post, Alex Tam, chief executive of iAdvantage, said his company prohibited the sending of spam from its network.

'Our company has clear policy in our service agreement with our customers that spamming activities are not allowed,' he said.

iAdvantage referred to the Hong Kong ISP Association's anti-spam code when drawing up its own policy.

This calls for warning, suspension and termination of customers found to repeatedly use their accounts to send spam.

'We will continue to work closely with the hosting company [Zentek International] to explore whether any further action is required,' Mr Tam said. 'However, there is no way for us to stop the spamming messages delivered through other service providers' networks.'

He did not foresee his company rejecting requests to host spam businesses.

'We consider the most effective way is to prohibit the sending of spamming messages, instead of stopping the hosting of those Web sites, as it will be difficult for hosting companies to judge if the Web sites are the real source of spamming,' Mr Tam said.

Alan Brown, who administers the Orbs database, described Mr Tam's response as 'a fairly weasily attempt to avoid' taking responsibility.

'Nuking [deleting] the accounts used to spam is expected,' he said. 'If the spammers have a bulletproof hosting service . . . then all they need to do is use throwaway accounts which they know will be nuked.'

While iAdvantage's spam policy could get it cleared from the Orbs list, Mr Brown said it qualified for the broader Maps blackhole.

'Maps policy is pretty clear,' he said, adding that companies which provide any services to spammers are eligible for inclusion on the Realtime Blackhole List.

While the Internet finds a way around most obstructions, when a major backbone carrier supports a blackhole list, the effects can be disastrous.

Above.net, which maintains the Maps blackhole, is one of Asia's main backbone providers, and helped block e-mail from Australia's Telstra last year.

Junk mailers have been encouraged by Hong Kong's apparent tolerance of spam.

With no laws in place, courts have dismissed charges against spammers, while the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance merely suggests e-mail users subscribe to widely discredited opt-out lists.



Netvigator hit in latest round of junk-mail war