In its latest compilation of the world’s 10 worst spammers, Spamhaus reported that spam continues to plague the Internet because “a small number of large Internet Service Providers sell service knowingly to professional spammers for profit, or do nothing to prevent spammers operating from their networks.”

Although all networks claim to be anti-spam, Spamhaus continued,

“some network executives factor revenue made from hosting known spam gangs into corporate policy decisions to continue to sell services to spam operations. Others simply decide that closing the holes in their end-user broadband systems that allow spammers access would be too costly to their bottom lines.”

This is quite an alarming trend. But that is true.

Of the three “Top 10″ reports regularly published by Spamhaus, the Top 10 worst Spam Service ISPs report is the most “active” worst list. For example, of the top 10 worst ISPs last May, six were replaced by newcomers.

Hopefully, the six ISPs booted out of the top 10 decided to clean up. And obiously, the vacuum was simply filled up by other ISPs looking for ways to generate revenue.

The above screen is the world’s 10 worst spam service ISPs as at yesterday, 24 September 2009.

Below is the report as at last 8 May. Note the changes compared to the latest report.

The two other reports by Spamhaus, the Top 10 Worst Spam Origin Countries and the Top 10 Worst Spammers could just be the result of poorly controlled ISPs based in those countries or being tolerant to spamming activities in their network.

Source:

The Australian Communications and Media Authority today launched Let’s Fight It Together, a new teaching resource to combat cyberbullying that will be available free to all schools in Australia.

Let’s Fight It Together is designed with teenagers in classroom situations in mind. The program aims to equip young people with strategies to avoid, get out of or help others deal with cyberbullying behaviour and to show adults how they can help.

‘The impact of cyberbullying— the use of social networking sites, mobile text messages, instant messaging, email and other websites to bully others—can be very damaging, and is becoming a significant issue for children and for schools,’ said Chris Chapman, Chairman of the ACMA.

‘Cyberbullying can be more pernicious than traditional forms of bullying: hostile messages can be sent at any time from any place; they can be sent anonymously and distributed more rapidly to wider audiences. For the target of the cyberbullying, there can be nowhere to run—places previously considered safe and personal are safe no longer.’

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, said educational resources such as Let’s Fight It Together are a key part of the Government’s comprehensive approach to cybersafety.

‘New technologies offer a world of opportunity but it is important that young people are empowered to address issues such as bullying in the online environment. This new resource will help raise awareness while providing important advice and support for young Australians, teachers and parents,’ Senator Conroy said.

Let’s fight It Together is based around a short video story which presents a cyberbullying scenario derived from real experiences of teenagers who have been cyberbullied. The DVD also includes interviews with the characters in the story—teachers, parents and young people—about their perspective on the cyberbullying scenario presented. The accompanying booklet is a comprehensive guide for teachers with lesson plans and activities to help get the most out of the DVD.

The Let’s Fight It Together resource materials have been customised to Australian schools by mapping to Australia’s national Statements of Learning for ICT. It was originally developed by Childnet International and the UK Department for Children Schools and Families where it has received high acclaim. It is also being used by schools in New Zealand and Europe. The resource can not only be used in schools, but also by parents and others involved in the care of children. The ACMA already has orders from over 200 schools for Let’s Fight It Together.

The DVD includes an introduction by Chris Chapman, Chairman of the ACMA, addressing parents and carers on dealing with cyberbullying and vox pops with Australian students discussing their reaction to the cyberbullying scenario and their own experiences with cyberbullying.

The Sydney launch of Let’s Fight It Together was attended by the chief executive officer of Childnet International, Will Gardner, the executive director of Netsafe New Zealand, Martin Cocker, and representatives of Australian education and child welfare bodies.

Schools can order a free copy of the Let’s Fight It Together resource by contacting the Cybersafety Contact Centre on telephone 1800 880 176.

Source: Australian Communications and Media Authority

Indigenous Statistics for Schools (ISS) – a new resource from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Education Services team – is now available from the ABS website at www.abs.gov.au/education.

The web pages provide easy to use data for students and teachers on Indigenous population, education, health, housing, work and more. Links to the original on-line data sources are also provided for those who want more information.

“We are sure that students from upper primary to senior secondary will find this a valuable resource,” said Paul Taylor, the ABS Director of Education Services.

“As well, teachers will be able to find current data about Indigenous Australians much more easily”.

“By providing this resource, we also aim to improve students ability to appropriately and rigorously examine numerical data,” he said.

The ISS web pages also covers general issues such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identification (including the history of the Census questions on ethnicity), how Indigenous statistics are collected and the importance of accurate Indigenous statistics.

This is a free educational resource and available from the education pages of the ABS website.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has released the final report of its assessment of compliance by equipment suppliers with the Information on Accessibility Features for Telephone Equipment Code (the code). The report found that all of the equipment suppliers assessed are now compliant with the code.

The code requires equipment suppliers to provide consumers and carriage service providers with information about the accessibility features of the customer equipment they import into or manufacture in Australia. In addition, equipment suppliers must provide contact details for carriage service providers and consumers should require information on their products.

The ACMA completed assessments of 17 providers in May 2009 following concerns raised at its Consumer Consultative Forum in 2008 about the level of compliance with the code. The ACMA conducted an audit and worked with equipment suppliers to improve compliance.

‘Customers with particular accessibility needs for telephone equipment can confidently contact any equipment supplier and obtain standardised information about the features of the product they require,’ said Chris Chapman, Chairman of the ACMA.

Source: Australian Communications and Media Authority

ACMA Australia recently released the first series of its report “Digital Economy” highlighting changing trends in the take-up and use of the internet by Australian consumers.

Some of the report findings are:

“Australians value the internet and see it as critical to their daily lives. Over 11 million Australians use the internet for a wide range of activities relating to communications, business and social activities. Twenty-seven per cent of Australian internet users trust the internet as a valued source of information and prefer it to traditional media, such as newspapers, radio and the television.

However, while Australians overwhelmingly see the internet as having affected their lives positively, they still have concerns about the potential for the internet to negatively affect their privacy and security.”

The full report is available at the .

When you’re operating an online shop, it pays, literally and figuratively, to have a currency converter installed on your site.

It does not matter whether your business caters only to local customers or to overseas market, these days a converter is a must. Consider especially that world currencies are volatile, and an information page with currency equivalents are important tools in the purchasing journey of your customers. Currency converters help provide answer price questions at that moment in time when your customers are ready to buy.

About 10 years ago when my company started emanila.com, there were only a handful of websites providing free currency converter service. One of them is which up to now, we are using in our . Like other currency converter services, XE rates are fed real-time. Design-wise, we did not have any issue at all. Once installed, we never touched it. XE automatically updates it using its live feed!

My other favourite online FX conversion service provider is Ozforex. I subscribed to its email service about three years and since then have received their daily (and sometimes twice a day) news and analysis on world currency market. Ozforex also provides an easy-to-install user interface.

Here is an of how an XE converter can be implemented in your pages taken straight from the XE interface. The converter can easily be customised to suit your preferences.