As bandwidth and access expands in emerging online countries millions of new users are vastly changing the anatomy of the connected world. Unfortunately, we also know that when a new region brings significant bandwidth and new users online, an onslaught of criminals follows, rushing to establish their abusive and illegal practices in new unprotected territory. While broadband access brings the promise of both economic and personal growth to these regions, it also opens the door to spammers and cybercriminals looking to set up new cyber-breeding grounds and expand their illicit operations around the world.
This raises an important question for the rest of the world: Will these rapidly evolving countries come online with all of the advantages from the industry’s decades of hard-won expertise in protecting end-users or will they unwittingly go through the same mundane struggles and ordeals, starting from scratch in learning about spam, malware, bots, DDoS attacks and other threats?
This is an educational and technology issue with global economic repercussions. As we all know, the Internet is a borderless entity and along with the communications and monetary exchange it enables, there also is an endless stream of spam, malware and fraudulent messaging surreptitiously flowing from country to country. Spam generated in one country very often targets users on the other side of the world.
For everyone involved, it is vital to prevent the establishment of new spam and cybercrime havens. Without the necessary understanding to protect their end-users, these developing countries will never fully recognize the benefits of the global online economy. If spammers and cybercriminals are allowed to subsist in these regions, users in countries with existing robust Internet economies will also be severely harmed.
Recognizing the hazards, many developing countries have asked for assistance with training, best practices and technical support to combat spam and abuse on their networks. The M3AA Foundation (M3AAF) provides the resources to support the necessary outreach to help emerging countries protect their ecosystem.
The M3AAF Mission and Charter
The M3AA Foundation is a global nonprofit dedicated to helping developing online countries become safe, functional and valued members of the Internet community.
M3AAF advocates safe and effective Internet access for users in all countries with all the benefits of participating in the online community, including economic growth and improved well being. To this end, we promote the voluntary implementation of known anti-abuse best practices for network and hosting operations to fight online abuse such as spam, bots and malware, and the continual updating of these practices with new techniques and technologies. This encourages reliable, safe and sustainable access to the global Internet community for business, governments and users.
The Foundation’s Goals
- Help emerging online countries become functional and safely-engaged participants in the global community by training industry ecosystem producers — such as ISPs and network operators, email service providers, technically-focused government agencies and NGOs — to avoid spreading unwanted traffic and other threats to the Internet community. This includes training to reduce the distribution of abusive messaging on all platforms and to abate related threats like bandwidth hijacking.
- Provide training to help emerging online countries protect their own citizens from Internet abuses, such as spam, phishing, malware, bots and other threats.
- Provide experts to speak on best practices and topical work that already exists within M3AAWG.
- Train the trainers on anti-abuse best practices so that the instruction lives on and is not “one shot work.”
- Provide training at hosted training venues such as ISOC Combating Spam Project workshops or M3AAF organized workshop/training meetings.
- Develop partnerships with other organizations in related work to expand the M3AAF outreach effort.
- Develop relationships with “champions on the ground’ in each region as a channel for sharing future M3AAWG and other organizations’ best practices.
Why Now? — Clearly Identified Need
Global Internet anti-abuse experts are already keenly aware of the scope and costs of the problems associated with the malware that is infecting the Internet. Identifying the best practices to mitigate these problems is just the beginning of the solution – this knowledge must be broadly propagated and used by network providers and operators worldwide to fix the problem. M3AAWG and other industry organizations have the expertise on methodologies to address spam abatement, malware, botnets and phishing. Yet, no organization has committed to the long-term effort of training.
M3AAWG and many other Anti-Abuse organizations were not created to provide a sustained long-term global training program. A sustained educational outreach requires additional funds and volunteers to support online countries with the necessary worldwide travel of experts and the development of additional materials in multiple languages.
This Foundation is dedicated to sustaining the long-term training efforts that are required.This independent entity is championed by M3AAWG and supported with continued development of proven anti-abuse best practices.
Legal Status of the New Foundation
The M3AA Foundation is incorporated in California as a Non-Profit Public Benefit Corporation. The Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization.
How You Can Help and For More Information
We appreciate your interest in M3AAF. Please join us in protecting end-users worldwide as the next generation of the Internet takes shape by engaging with emerging regions to abate spam and online abuse.
If you want to help, the Foundation is seeking volunteer experts for our Training Advisory Council, existing relevant training material, experienced individuals to serve on the Board of Directors and financial contributions to sustain and expand the training programs.
For more information, please contact Jerry Upton at jerry@m3aaf.org.