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Bright Light Fights Spam

Spam relief is on the way for AT&T WorldNet, EarthLink, Concentric, and USA.net users.

By Torsten Busse, PCWorld   

Targeting Internet service providers, large companies, and e-mail server software vendors, the company aims to stop spam as it happens, through the use of a dedicated spam monitoring system, said Sunil Paul, the company's cofounder and chief executive officer.

Bright Mail beta test participants include ISPs and e-mail providers such as AT&T WorldNet Service, EarthLink Network, Concentric Networks and USA.net.

The Bright Mail system consists of the Probe Network, a massive number of e-mail addresses established for the sole purposes of receiving spam and functioning as an around-the-clock early warning system that detects incoming spam and delivers it in real-time to the Bright Light Operations Center.

At the BLOC, a twenty-four-hours a day, seven-days-a-week operation staffed with spam experts, staff will evaluate spam and issue spam updates, which the company calls Intelligent Counter Measures

ICMs--similar to the virus updates provided by antivirus software vendors to their customers--are updates that go out to Spam Wall filtering software, which is integrated at an ISP or corporate e-mail server. The Spam Wall is a filtering engine that identifies and screens out spam based on the rules defined in the ICMs, Paul said.

Customers such as ISPs will have to buy a Spam Wall filter, starting at $10,000 for a yearly license that includes the BLOC updates for up to 2000 seats, Paul said. Bright Light will bundle its software with Sendmail Pro, to be released in the fourth quarter of this year.