Ihug service to keep inbox clean

By RICHARD WOOD

Internet provider ihug is attempting to knock out spam with an optional service, i-Spy Assassin, which it will add to its $2.50 a month i-Spy antivirus service.

Ihug director Tim Wood said existing methods for controlling spam or unsolicited emails were not working and required too much effort for the customer. They tended to rely on blacklists of known spam senders.

I-Spy Assassin blocks spam by analysing emails for common words and phrases, such as "xxx porn".

The system will start with 400 rules. Emails will have points added according to which rules apply, and an email with many points will be considered spam.

Customers can choose from three strictness levels.

Spam emails are filtered off to a holding pen, where customers can peruse them later.

If a piece of Spam is still wanted, or the system has made a mistake, that email can then be sent on.

Wood said testing showed the system was not picking out any wrong files.

It has cost ihug about $200,000 in additional server capacity and is expected to catch 90 per cent of spam, rising to 96 per cent as more rules are developed.

Telecom-owned internet provider Xtra recently launched a compulsory antivirus service for its email customers. The service uses software from antivirus vendor Trend Micro.

An Xtra customer contacted the Herald to complain about the new service being compulsory, because it might erroneously "fix" an uninfected file, thereby corrupting it.

Wood said Ihug had offered its optional email antivirus service for 12 months for an additional charge and had experimented with a comprehensive service four months ago. He said the latter experiment failed because people did not like being dictated to and some preferred to deal with viruses themselves.

"It's about customer choice. We got large amounts of complaints."

But Wood said he was glad Xtra had introduced an automatic antivirus service because it would cut the number of viruses circulating in New Zealand.

He said ihug had seen fewer emailed viruses within its customer base since offering its service, but the number coming from other internet providers had increased.

Xtra spokesman Matt Bostwick said to be properly effective the Xtra service needed to cover all customers.

He said the virus problem was getting worse and something had to be done to address it properly.

"One of the things we've looked at here is that there is an issue for all computer users.

"It can only be a benefit for the whole industry."

Bostwick was also keen to point out that the service, which cost Xtra more than $1 million to implement, was free.

Ihug and Xtra's antivirus services apply to email only, so customers will still need antivirus software to protect themselves from other infection methods, such as web pages.