Press Release : February 2007
Do you have what it takes to become a bounty hunter?
ISOC-ZA fights the battle against SPAM
The Internet Society of South Africa (ISOC-ZA) adopts muted practices in managing and reducing local SPAM. Officially launching today, the SPAM Bounty Programme is designed to provide information on SPAM, how to deal with it, when to report it and how to manage the criminal case and investigation to receive a bounty or reward for the successful conviction of a spammer.
According to recent reports from local ISPs, spam makes up more than 70% of all monitored email traffic; this has increased by well over 20% in the past 6 months. Spam has evolved and new security risks have emerged whereby writers of viruses and spammers are merging their expertise to produce a more sophisticated strain of email threat. It has become essential that we involve the South African Internet community to assist in the fight against spam.
As such, ISOC have joined forces with various organisations and through the Spam Bounty Hunter initiative, will look to provide Internet users with a knowledge resource on what spam is and how to catch a local spammer. The initiative is focused on educating individuals on how to deal with local spammers - with respect to the processes to get it to court, when to report it and escalate to the police, how to manage the criminal case and investigations, including the public prosecutor. As an incentive, a bounty of R7,500 for an admission of guilt fine, R15,000 for a conviction in the magistrates court and R30,000 for a conviction in the high court, will be rewarded to any member of the public that successfully convicts a spammer.
Established in 1997, ISOC-ZA is a civil society organisation with the goal of developing the Internet society in South Africa. According to Alan Levin, chairman of ISOC, public policy is an area where the organisation has had the most activity and has directly driven and participated in the current legislation on SPAM. "Whilst we were hoping for stronger regulations we understand that at the time of creation the legislation on SPAM was a good starting point. Now, more than four years later, we have identified an opportunity to improve outcomes and reduce SPAM originating from SA," said Levin. "One of the weaknesses in the current system is that it depends on recipients to act on the SPAM they receive."
Unfortunately Internet users - and the police - are generally unaware of the laws and regulations that govern SPAM which often results in a technological solution to a people problem and unfortunately does not hamper the spammer. As a result the industry is seeing an increase in SA-based spam. "It is important for South African's to perform their civic duty to further develop the country's potential. Everyone needs to play a role in combating crime and this initiative will provide consumers with the knowledge and platform to do so - not to mention keeping spammers at bay."
Consumers will need to register as a member of the ISOC community at http://wiki.isoc.org.za to empower themselves with the resources to understand and identify SPAM and how to collect evidence. Once evidence is obtained, it needs to be taken to the police, who will need to consult with the Cybercrime unit to ensure that the case reaches the courts and a penalty is enforced to win a reward.
Through this initiative, individuals and the SA Internet community will be empowered to join the fight against SPAM and we believe that they will receive the greatest benefits in terms of reduced local spam - through both mechanisms of better education of the topic as well as better enforceability of the law, concludes Levin.
