Obscene Spam Emails Anger Brunet Users
By CT Hj Mahmod

Bandar Seri Begawan - Brunet account users, especially parents, are horrified to find the inbox of their BruNet email accounts receiving hundreds of spam emails, most of which either carry links to pornographic web sites or contain lewd and obscene materials.

"This is not something that we want our children to see every time they open their email," said a parent.

Such malicious emails, which at times reach over 100 per day, have been coming in everyday for the past three months, several BruNet account users told the Borneo Bulletin.

One of the users' attempts to install firewall protection in his personal computer to block out the spamming, following the advice from relevant authority, was in vain as such lewd emails continued to infiltrate into his inbox.

"There is a technology that can be installed at the main server to prevent the spamming of lewd emails from reaching the end-users' email account," an IT expert told the Borneo Bulletin yesterday.

It depends on the firewall's capabilities to allow email spamming to undergo an inspection where the content of each email that reaches the network is examined, depending on the criteria set, he added.

Internet or BruNet users, the IT expert suggested, can purchase anti-spy protection software off the shelf at any computer shops. But, he did not guarantee it would work 100 per cent, and insisted that the prevention should start from the main server.

There are two types of firewall protection: software and hardware/appliance. However, the protection level depends on the server. In Brunei's case, the BruNet server, and not the end-users.

When the Bulletin contacted JTB's technical group yesterday, an official source said the technical group has done some level of filtering, about 50 to 60 per cent. Anything more than that, the source said, could disrupt the normal email processing.

He also said the technical support group has not received any formal complaint on such lewd email spamming so far and assured that precautionary actions will be taken should there be a need.

Similar complaints on spamming occurred late last year, when JTB's Corporate Communication issued a statement last December saying, "Despite BruNet's continuous efforts carried out to weed out the problems, only 50 to 60 per cent of the spams are filtered due to the evolved nature of spams."

BruNet yesterday advised users to install anti-spam software on their personal computers, which can either be purchased or downloaded from http://www.aiti.gov.bn/ spam address. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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