Windows-Help.NET Newsletter

01. Microsoft Proposes Technical Solutions To Fight Spam

by Arie Slob

Hello Windows users,

This week, in his keynote address at the RSA Conference 2004 held in San Francisco, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced a detailed vision and proposals on how technology can be used to help put an end to spam, including the establishment of Caller ID for E-Mail, part of Microsoft's Coordinated Spam Reduction Initiative (CSRI).

Currently, a lot of spam email send is purporting to be from someone it is not, a technique called "Spoofing". This makes it difficult to track the origins of the spam, and also tricks some existing spam filters.

Microsoft has developed a Caller ID for E-Mail proposal to help eliminate spoofing and increase the effectiveness of spam filters by verifying what domain a message came from, much like how caller ID for telephones shows the phone number of the person calling.

The way this system is proposed to work is that E-mail senders, large or small, publish the Internet protocol (IP) addresses of their outbound e-mail servers in the Domain Name System (DNS) in a format described in the Caller ID for E-Mail specification. Then, receiving e-mail systems will query the DNS for the list of outbound e-mail server IP addresses of the purported responsible domain. They then check whether the IP address from which the message was received is on that list. If no match is found, the message has most likely been spoofed.

According to Microsoft, they are moving ahead with plans for a pilot implementation of this Caller ID for E-Mail in their Hotmail service. Hotmail - currently estimated to serve over 150 million users - will begin publishing outbound IP addresses today and will begin checking inbound addresses early this summer. In addition, Microsoft is working with others in the industry to test this proposal, including Amazon.com Inc., Brightmail Inc. and Sendmail Inc.

For this system to work, a large number of email providers will have to adopt it.

More information on technical specifications for the CSRI and Caller ID for E-Mail proposals are available for public review and comment at this Microsoft Web site.

02. Recommended Book: Windows XP for Power Users

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Written by Curt Simmons - who is considered an expert on Microsoft Office and Windows - an author of more than thirty books on Microsoft and Internet technologies.

To Order: USA | EU (�18.89)

03. Recent Support BBS Postings

Roaming User Profiles NT/XP - Windows XP
Hardware checker anyone? - Hardware
Build or Buy? (Is an OEM really worth the savings?) - General
Shield your PC against cyberattacks with FREE* Antivirus and Firewall Software - Security/Virus/Spyware
Email: Preview vs. Opening - Internet Explorer / Outlook Express

05. Web Site Updates

These pages were added/updated in the past week. Information on previously updated/added pages is available on the What's New? page for 1 month.

RoseCitySoftware.com

Added: Video Games Arcade Center - new Arcade Center launched!
Updated: Registry First Aid - new version 3.2.1 build 398

Windows-Help.NET

Added: Microsoft Proposes Technical Solutions To Fight Spam
Added: Microsoft Releases Rights Management Add-on for Internet Explorer
Added: Microsoft Offers Preview of Updated InfoPath 2003

Windows 98

Added: Microsoft Releases Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) for Windows 98 v1.3

06. Microsoft Releases Rights Management Add-on for Internet Explorer

This week, Microsoft released Rights Management add-on for Internet Explorer 1.0. The Rights Management Add-on for Internet Explorer is a way that Windows users can view files with restricted permission. These restrictions help people to prevent sensitive documents, Web-based information, and e-mail messages from being forwarded, edited, or copied by unauthorized individuals.

Read Full Article

7. Microsoft Offers Preview of Updated InfoPath 2003

This week, Microsoft unveiled a special preview of updates that will be added to Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003, the information-gathering and management program, as part of the Office 2003 service pack scheduled for release in June. In addition, the service pack also will contain feature enhancements that organizations can choose to deploy to aid developers and end users in capitalizing on the InfoPath platform.

Read Full Article

8. Microsoft Releases Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) for Windows 98 v1.3

DCOM98 1.3 extends the support for Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) for Microsoft Windows 98. The DCOM wire protocol transparently provides support for reliable, secure, and efficient communication between COM components such as ActiveX controls, scripts, and Java applets residing on different machines in a LAN, a WAN, or on the Internet.

Read Full Article

9. How to cut spam without shooting your PC

Junk e-mail is today's scourge of the Internet-now representing 20 percent of all e-mail. Though there isn't a solution that eliminates junk e-mail entirely, there are steps you can take to reduce the amount you receive.

Read Microsoft Article