Vircom Starts Global Anti-SPAM Coalition

April 8, 2002

Fighting spam since 1997, Vircom embarks on unique anti-spam campaign with its enterprise and service provider customers to build a deep intelligent spam knowledge-base system

Vircom Inc., a leading developer of Internet infrastructure server solutions, today announced the creation of the VOP Anti-Spam Coalition (VASC), a cooperative network between Vircom and a growing number of its VOP modusMail customers who are engaged in an international campaign to fight unsolicited bulk email, otherwise known as spam.

"It's all about control and the freedom of choice," said Bertrand Houle, vice-president, Sales and Marketing at Vircom. "Most companies are often at the mercy of spammers who continually modify their tactics to invade, flood or exploit mail servers for their own gain. There is a tremendous need for them to regain control and exercise the right to conduct business normally without having to take such extreme measures as White Listing which accepts only a pre-set list of emails and shuts the rest of the world out."

The conception of VASC is due directly to the early success of VOP modusMail and its use of Vircom-enhanced Sieve scripts - a standard Internet scripting language (RFC 3028) defined for email filtering - and its powerful ability to answer the simple question, 'Is this email spam, or not spam?' Since the launch earlier this year, VOP modusMail enterprise customers, especially those in the service provider industry, have not only drastically reduced their spam, but are actually taking immense pleasure in their newfound power and flexibility to modify Sieve scripts and witness the desired effects.

"For anyone who hasn't made the jump I would point out that scripting can become addictive. It is just too much fun squashing spam and being effective at it," said Mark Thornton of San Marcos Internet. "Over a three day period within the first two weeks of deploying VOP modusMail, I did some analysis of the number of messages delivered to our clients (greater than 180,000) versus the number of false positives (4) and figured that works out to a 0.0022% false positive. Likewise, the scripts traded around by the members of the Sieve mailing list have delivered 99.998% accuracy."

As a consequence, a new 'grass-roots' community of customers have - within a mere two months - been combining their efforts to write and share new Sieve scripts to expand on Vircom's original script batch. Almost all new scripts are submitted and centralized via Vircom's in-house 'spam buster' team which writes, updates, categorizes, and validates all scripts - especially its own which are based on spam caught by decoy IP addresses - and redistributes them to VOP modusMail customers, 24/7.

To expand the network and maintain quality control, VASC offers an opportunity to all current and future VOP modusMail customers to register and become official anti-spam coalition partners. Membership will provide them with full open access to Vircom's growing knowledge base of Sieve scripts which, in itself, will significantly facilitate the process to create new scripts based on their own 'front-line' spam experiences. Once submitted to and validated by Vircom, scripts are absorbed into the system and promptly made available to all customers - whether they are a VASC member or not.

As an added incentive, Vircom will reward Sieve script contributors with 'Spam Miles' which may be used for rebates on future products and services. Moreover, Vircom will keep taps of the coalition's progress with an assortment of online tools available to the public on the Vircom website. Soon to be implemented will be a global spam counter and generated statistics that track in real time the worldwide number of spam caught by all members. Vircom will also post and update a top ten scoreboard of the best performing Sieve scripts, provide the latest industry news on spam, and enable members to privately check their own personal progress and all their earned Spam Miles by logging-in with a user-name and password.

More about Vircom Sieve scripts

On a daily basis, Vircom categorizes all scripts into different spam email categories and varying levels of severity, including 'Normal', 'Strong' and 'Extreme'. Once VOP modusMail is deployed, clients select specific protection from any number of schemes such as financial, pornographic, medical, educational, and gambling emails. New scripts written by clients - whether a VASC member or not - are submitted from within the application.

VOP modusMail also ensures that any valid emails that do get blocked - known as false positives - are very close to nil. Administrators possess even further control with an integrated Spam Quarantine where all caught spam may be easily reviewed, managed and released if considered a false positive.

About Vircom Inc.

Vircom Inc., a Cryonetworks company, develops Internet infrastructure server solutions and value-added content for enterprises and the service provider industry. With a focus on low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and maximum Return on Investment (ROI), Vircom markets a full range of mail server, secure messaging and Radius server solutions. Call 514-845-1666 or visit www.vircom.com for more details.

To learn more about VASC and how to become an official anti-spam coalition partner please go to www.vircom.com/community.

CONTACT: Vircom Inc. Peter Matz, 514/845-1666 x.270, peter.matz@vircom.com

SOURCE: Vircom Inc.