Subject: [marf] Misuse of ARF by spam-friendly ISPs

From: Steve Atkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2011 09:56:20 -0700

A major US ISP has started using the existence of ARF as an excuse to reject all spam complaints to their abuse@ alias, instead saying that they refuse to accept any reports of abuse in any format other than ARF - meaning that typical users have no way to report the (large amounts of) abusive mail they emit.

It strikes me that using ARF as a scapegoat for antisocial behaviour of this sort is not going to do ARF's reputation much good, especially if other abuse-friendly ISPs pick up on the idea.

Is there anything "we" can do about it, such as putting a policy statement somewhere? Should we?

Cheers,
  Steve

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From: "Alex Bobotek" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2011 10:18:28 -0700

Steve,

Is a more detailed statement of this ISP's policy and rationale
available?  This might have some bearing on the question of whether MARF
or other action is appropriate.  Some formal or informal chat or action
on best MARF practices in MAAWG is also be a possibility.

Regards,

Alex

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
Steve Atkins
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2011 9:56 AM
To: Message Abuse Report Format working group
Subject: [marf] Misuse of ARF by spam-friendly ISPs

A major US ISP has started using the existence of ARF as an excuse to
reject all spam complaints to their abuse@ alias, instead saying that
they refuse to accept any reports of abuse in any format other than ARF
- meaning that typical users have no way to report the (large amounts
of) abusive mail they emit.

It strikes me that using ARF as a scapegoat for antisocial behaviour of
this sort is not going to do ARF's reputation much good, especially if
other abuse-friendly ISPs pick up on the idea.

Is there anything "we" can do about it, such as putting a policy
statement somewhere? Should we?

Cheers,
  Steve

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marf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/marf

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From: Steve Atkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2011 10:26:44 -0700

On Jul 30, 2011, at 10:18 AM, Alex Bobotek wrote:

> or other action is appropriate.

The ISP has made no statement of what their policy or rationale is.
I could speculate, but that probably wouldn't be helpful.

Sending email to their abuse@ alias leads to a response that
starts with "Thank you for your email, but this address now only
accepts messages in Abuse Reporting Format." - that's the only
information I have about them right now.

>  Some formal or informal chat or action

That too, yes. I was more thinking along the lines of "us" being
clear that ARF is not intended as a replacement for manual reports,
rather a useful additional format primarily for machine-to-machine
communication.

Cheers,
  Steve

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From: "Murray S. Kucherawy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2011 21:30:30 -0700

> Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2011 10:27 AM
> Subject: Re: [marf] Misuse of ARF by spam-friendly ISPs
> 

I wonder if this could be mentioned in the BCP effort we're doing (JD?).

Failing that, if we decide to update the base document given the recent flurry of input, this could certainly go in there.  But it's too early to make that call, I think.

-MSK