Contents

0. Introduction
Link: #0

Table of Contents

Introduction Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc01

1. No email relaying
Link: #1 Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc1

• Discussion Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc11
• Requirements Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc12

2. Traceability of email Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc2 passing through the system
Link: #2

• Discussion Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc21
• Requirements Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc22

3. Identification of the sender of email
Link: #3 Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc3 of email

• Discussion Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc31
• Requirements Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc32
• Exception Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc33

4. Handle abuse reports Link: #4 Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc4

• Discussion Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc41
• Requirements Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc42

5. Act upon reports of abuse
Link: #5 6. Deny use of UBE for promotion Link: #6
7. Prohibit the distribution of UBE tools and address lists by customers
Link: #7 8. Disseminate information Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc5 of abuse

• Discussion Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc51
• Requirements Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc52

6. Disseminate information Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc6 on action taken

against customers
Link: #8 9. Education Link: #9

Appendices

A: Glossary
Link: #a B: References and Resources
Link: #B

• Discussion Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc61
• Requirements Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc62

7. Education Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc7

• Discussion Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc71
• Requirements Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc72

Appendix A: Glossary Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#tocA

Appendix B: References Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#tocB and Resources

Appendix C: Specimen Clauses

Link: #c D: Definition of Normative Terms Link: #d

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0. Introduction

Unsolicited Bulk Email

Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#tocC

Appendix D: Key Words Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#tocD in Requirements

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Introduction

Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE) is a widespread problem on the Internet. It is sometimes called "junk email" or "spam". Because of the volumes involved and the indiscriminate nature of its sending, there can be few email users who do not have first hand experience of receiving UBE, often in significant quantity.

The sending of UBE is considered to be unacceptable behaviour because:

• it interferes with the operation of the Internet Internet.
  • There have been instances of systems collapsing from the sheer bulk of email that has been sent. Senders have arranged for delivery failures to be reported to third parties, causing significant problems to their operations. Besides these gross failures, UBE, by its presence alone, degrades email systems for everyone, delaying and blocking legitimate traffic. These effects can be seen far beyond the Internet, across all the systems that carry email.
• it creates unwanted traffic for the recipients recipients.
  • In most cases, users must pay for their connection, so they are funding the reception of something that was not wanted in the first place.
• it creates support overheads for ISPs ISPs.
  • ISPs must deal not only with the complaints from their own customers who have received unwanted e-mail, email, but also with the reports submitted by others, demanding precipitate action, when their own customers have sent the UB

    Furthermore

  UBE.

  Furthermore:

• In its commercial form UBE usually promotes goods of dubious provenance, legality or taste taste.
• No reputable schemes for regulating UBE exist.
• The individuals and companies sending UBE have shown no willingness to seriously co-operate with the Internet industry to reduce the impact of their activities activities.
• The UBE is seldom sent to those who might appreciate it. It costs the sender next to nothing to send UBE. This removes any incentive to limit its distribution. There are real fears that UBE could grow without limit and clog up the Internet, and the mailboxes of every e-mail email user on the planet planet.

It is resource intensive and to a large extent ineffective for ISPs to try to block UBE once it has been sent, so this BCP does not describe the limited manner in which this may be attempted. In the fight against UBE the ISP's most practical contribution is to minimise or eliminate the sending (or other use) of UBE by its customers or from its systems. The purpose of this BCP is to describe the industry's current collective opinion of the Best Practice in achieving this.

Besides being in the general interest for ISPs to adopt Best Practice, many ISPs will wish to be publicly seen to be doing what they can to combat UBE. To that end, it is expected that ISPs will wish to state formally that they have adopted the recommendations of this BCP. To assist in this, the document has been written as a "standard", using the terms MUST, SHOULD, MAY and MUST NOT as defined in RFC 2119 (see Appendix D Link: #d for a summary of this).

For an ISP to be effective in combating UBE, Best Practice is as follows:

follows.

1. The ISP MUST ensure that their email systems will not relay e-mail email for unauthorised third parties.
2. The ISP MUST ensure that all email generated within their network can be traced to its source; and MUST ensure that the immediate source of email which arrives from other networks can be determined.
3. The ISP MUST ensure that all email generated within their own networks can be attributed to a particular customer or system.
4. The ISP MUST operate appropriate arrangements for the handling of reports of abuse by their customers. They MUST also ensure that IP allocation entries in Regional Registries such as RIPE NCC contain appropriate abuse team email addresses.
5. Where abuse is proved, the ISP MUST take effective action to prevent the customer from continuing that abuse. sending further UBE. The legal basis on which services are provided to customers MUST allow such action to be taken.
6. The ISP MUST
7. treat use of UBE to promote secondary services as an abuse of the provision of that secondary service.
8. The ISP MUST NOT permit customers to distribute tools, or lists of email addresses, whose purpose is the sending of UBE.
The ISP SHOULD disseminate information on the action taken in regard to customers who have sent UBE.
9. The ISP MUST educate their customers on the nature of UBE, and MUST ensure that their customers have been made aware that sending UBE will be treated as unacceptable behaviour.

   The ISP MUST inform their customers about any automated anti-spam mechanisms in operation, and MUST educate their customers about any potential harmful side-effects.These nine

These seven points are expanded below.

Along with the extended explanations, this BCP lists a number of conditions that ISPs MUST impose upon their customers. It will be necessary to ensure that the contract made between ISP and customer gives the ISP the legal right to make these impositions and to withdraw services when unacceptable behaviour occurs.

To ensure fair competition between ISPs, so that no marketing advantage can be gained by failing to spell out these obligations properly, the ISP MAY use the standard clauses set out in Appendix C Link: #c and MUST use these clauses or others which are at least as effective. The ISP MAY place these clauses into a more general Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) that covers other abuse issues.

The provisions of this BCP document are to be applied to all customers. However, some customers will have customers of their own. The ISP will conform to Best Practice by ensuring that such customers adopt this BCP themselves, and thereby apply Best Practice procedures in turn to their own customers.

Appendix A Link: #a provides a glossary of terms, but in particular, throughout this document the term "ISP" should be understood to apply not only to "top level" providers of Internet connectivity, but also to customers of such ISPs who are "recursively" applying the BCP to their own customers. Also, the term "customer" should be understood to apply not only where there is a formal contractual relationship, but also to other cases where someone may be a "user" of the ISP's facilities.

1. No e-mail

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No email relaying

Discussion

Historically, e-mail email systems using the SMTP protocol have been prepared to accept email from anyone and then deliver it to, or towards, its true destination. This willingness to "relay" made Internet email extremely robust, since minor configuration errors on one machine could be overcome by another machine with more accurate knowledge of how to deliver the email. Furthermore, the spirit of co-operation that pervades the Internet has meant that machine owners tended not to log, let alone block, such relaying.

With the advent of the Domain Name System (DNS) and far better connectivity for all machines, this need for relaying passed away long ago. However, the functionality continues to be provided within email programs.

Unfortunately, in recent times, the unscrupulous have been abusing the "relay" function by sending a single piece of email with a long list of destinations. This can cause someone else's system to generate multiple copies of the e-mail email for delivery to many different addresses. By "amplifying" email in this way, the sender of UBE is exploiting the resources of others to do most of the work of generating the UBE. Furthermore, it is possible for the sender to use a poorly configured system to hide the true source of the email or at least to ensure that the less skilled misidentify its source.

As it is no longer required and because it is open to abuse, it is now considered quite improper for systems to be configured in such a way that they will relay e-mail email for unauthorised people.

There are several ongoing projects on the wider Internet to identify systems that are still prepared to relay email. Typically, such systems are added to blocking lists that affect the propagation of e-mail. email. Even if one wished to run an "open relay" the time is approaching when few will be prepared to interwork with such a system.

It is common for ISPs to run "smarthosts", which provide SMTP email delivery for their customers, especially those on dial up dialup connections or local networks. This avoids the necessity for these customer machines to have fully fledged delivery systems of their own. This "smarthosting" is just a form of relaying, but is of course a completely acceptable practice, provided that the smarthost is configured to refuse to relay any email sent to it by unauthorised machines.

Requirements

• ISPs MUST configure their email systems to prevent unauthorised email relaying.
• ISPs SHOULD accept email for their own customers, and they MAY make explicit private arrangements to relay e-mail email for specific other systems.
• ISPs MUST prohibit their customers from running systems that will relay email for unauthorised people. If such a system is being run the ISP MUST take steps to remove it from the Internet until this behaviour is corrected.
• The ISP SHOULD arrange to regularly check that its customers, particularly those on permanent connections, are not running open email relays. Where this is inappropriate for security reasons, or where the connection is intermittent, the ISP SHOULD ensure that the customers are told how to make this check for themselves. The ISP MAY provide tools, probably on the web, to allow customers to make their own checks.

Appendix B Link: #B contains pointers to technical information about how to ensure that email relaying does not occur.
Appendix C Link: #c contains specimen contractual clauses to allow these, and other, requirements to be implemented.

2.

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Traceability of email passing through the system

Discussion

Tracing the source of email requires that all systems comply with the email standards and add a "Received" header line as the email passes through them. This serves to identify the machine that is adding the header and the machine from which the email arrived. In principle, the oldest such line indicates the source of the email. In practice, this is sometimes forged, and to trace the true sender it is necessary to work through the Received lines in time order until a discontinuity is found.

The senders of email will sometimes try to obscure the true origin of email by forging the name of the source machine in the "HELO" protocol command. This type of forgery is made easy to detect by ensuring that the Received line contains not only the name, but also the IP address of the sending system, since the latter cannot be disguised.

Requirements

• ISPs MUST ensure that a standards-compliant "Received" line is added to all email that passes through their systems.
• ISPs MUST ensure that the identity of the machine passing them the email is correctly recorded. The HELO announcement MUST NOT be treated as being valid and an IP address SHOULD be recorded.

3. Contents Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc Top Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc00 Identification of the sender of email

Discussion

Section 2 has the effect of ensuring that email can be traced back to an originating IP address.

With dial up dialup access, it is common to use "dynamic IP", so that the same address will be reused for other customers. ISDN connections take only a few seconds, so in principle the same IP address can almost immediately be in use by another person entirely.

However, the combination of IP address and time of connection will uniquely identify where the e-mail email came from. So an accurate time must be recorded into the email header Received line. The combination of this time with other access logs, held by the originating ISP, will serve to identify the sender.

The above description has only skimmed the surface of a complex topic. The LINX Best Current Practice document on "Traceability" (see Appendix B Link: #B ) B) can be consulted for further information and advice.

Requirements

• ISPs MUST ensure that they keep accurate time on their email systems.
• Dynamic IP addresses can be reused in very short order. ISPs SHOULD be using time stamps based on NTP, or an equivalent protocol that regularly checks the time against standard values and which can provide sub-second accuracy.
• ISPs MUST keep other logs for a reasonable period, subject to local Data Protection legislation, period so that they can ensure as far as possible that they are able to translate a given dynamic IP address, in use at a given time, to a particular customer who can be held accountable for any abuse.

Exception

An exception to Sections 2 and 3 sections (2) and (3) arises in the case of a system run to deliberately hide the source of email - often called an "anon server". "Anon servers" are used to preserve anonymity where, for example, someone seeks help from a group supporting victims of abuse or wishes to express political views in a country that may punish dissent.

• ISPs or their customers MAY run anon servers where this is explicitly intended to be the function of the service being provided. They MUST NOT allow their standard service to provide anonymity by failing to comply with this BCP.
• However an anon server SHOULD NOT be capable of 'amplification' of email by expanding address lists and SHOULD have limiting mechanisms to ensure that the volume of email passing through the server cannot be unusually high without explicit system owner knowledge.

4. Contents Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc Top Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/spam.html#toc00 Handle abuse reports

Discussion

ISPs are required to accept and process e-mailed reports about any reports of abuse by their own customers, whatever person or organisation may send the reports. customers.

If a customer posts UBE then complaints are likely to be made to the ISP. These complaints have in the past, have, by convention, generally been sent to the "postmaster" mailbox. More recently it has become desirable to direct such email to a specialist "abuse" mailbox. This practice was first fully documented in RFC2142.

Some ISPs are developing specialised reporting systems that, for example, allow complaints to be entered into a form on a website. There are many advantages to such systems in that they ensure that reports are complete and they can boost productivity, allowing prompt and efficient handling of the reports. However, they have disadvantages in that they can only be used online and at present there are no standard conventions for their layout or their location. Therefore, although ISPs may wish to encourage their use and to develop other automated submission systems for third-party sites that collate reports from many people, it is not appropriate, at present, to see them as entirely replacing e-mail reports.

It is often "obvious" which ISP is responsible for particular IP addresses and hence which "abuse" mailbox to use. However, in some cases it may be necessary to consult the appropriate Regional Registry (such as RIPE NCC) in order to determine IP address ownership. It has therefore become standard practice to document within registry entries the explicit abuse@isp -mail address to be used. It is important that complaints continue to be accepted at the "obvious" address even though the registry entry may indicate that another address is to be preferred. At present, registry entries can only record abuse mailbox details by means of comment fields, which inhibits automatic processing, but a formally specified system may be introduced in the future.

RFC 2142.

When a complaint is received, it is wise to promptly acknowledge it, perhaps merely with a standard message that describes the local policies and procedures.

It is desirable to run a "ticketing" system that allows incident reports to be tracked. This will assist in combining reports and in collating further correspondence that may arrive from the original complainant.

It is also desirable to reply to people who submit complaints to explain what action is eventually decided upon. Sometimes, especially when a large number of reports are being received, this is not very practical. The standard message described above can usefully explain that this may happen, and it may be possible to direct people to a website web site where any action taken by the ISP will be recorded (see Section section 6 below).

Requirements

• Where ISPs have many customers whose domain names are structured in a hierarchy linked to the ISP name (as in the examples below) then the The ISP MUST accept reports to an address of the form abuse@domain where domain is the domain used by its customers, or in the case where the customer's domain is a subdomain of a generic domain, the abuse address must work in the generic domain domain.
  
  
  • i.e. where customers have addresses like like: [email protected]
    the abuse address to be supported is is: [email protected]
    where customers have addresses like like: [email protected]
    the abuse address to be supported is [email protected]
    
    
  • Where ISPs have customers who use their own domain names, not immediately linkable to the ISP, then the ISP MUST still accept abuse reports sent to the ISP
    
    
    • For example, where customers of isp.com use their own domains, such as [email protected]
      the abuse address to be supported is [email protected]
      
      
  • The ISP MUST document the appropriate "abuse@" address within the Regional Registry information for each IP address block delegated to them
is:

[email protected]

• If it wishes, the ISP MAY accept reports submitted to other abuse addresses as well (e.g. [email protected]), but it MUST NOT require the report to be resubmitted to another address before acting upon it
• If it wishes, the ISP MAY accept reports submitted via other media such as web forms and MAY encourage this so as to improve the accuracy of reports and to improve productivity in dealing with reports, but an ISP MUST NOT refuse to accept reports by e-mail to the appropriate "abuse@" address
it.
• The ISP SHOULD document the existence of their "abuse@" addresses on their corporate website, these addresses on the corporate web site, and SHOULD indicate the type of information that is required to make an abuse report useful
useful.
• The ISP MUST acknowledge the receipt of abuse reports and SHOULD use a ticketing system to allow tracking of such

  reports5.

reports.

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Act upon reports of abuse

Discussion

There is no acceptable excuse for the sending of unsolicited bulk email.

Apart from people pleading ignorance of the unacceptable nature of UBE, which is covered in the requirements Requirements section below, the most likely explanation will be a claim that the e-mail email was in fact solicited.

In determining whether to accept this explanation the ISP must look at how the e-mail email addresses were acquired. Data Protection legislation will normally require that information is processed "fairly and lawfully". In particular, the ISP should look for positive answers to all the following questions:

• Were people aware that their email address was being collected?
• Is the e-mail email being sent obviously connected to the collection of the address?
• Was there a way of "opting out" from receiving email?
• Is there a way for the recipient of the email to revoke their previous permission?

follow these guidelines.)

The effect of these tests is that posting articles to Usenet or the mere visiting of a website web site does NOT make the subsequent sending of bulk email "solicited". Nor does it make it likely that acquiring lists of e-mail email addresses from a third party will mean that a customer has acquired any entitlement ability to send solicited e-mail to those addresses email to those addresses.

Clearly, where someone has explicitly signed up for a mailing list the email that arrives is solicited. However, in the real world some mailing lists are dormant for long periods and the people who join them can have poor memories. When email does arrive it may be reported to the mailing list owner's ISP as being unsolicited. Since the same software can be used to send genuine requested mailing list email and UBE, the ISP will have to apply the tests given above to distinguish the two cases.

Mailing list owners can demonstrate that they are behaving responsibly by keeping good records. Ideally they would be able to produce a copy of the "subscribe" email for the list and would have checked it out at the time by "mailback" confirmation techniques to ensure that a third party had not maliciously requested the subscription. It is of course vital that the recipient of the unwanted email can unsubscribe from the list. Modern mailing list software packages automate all these procedures. There is a great deal more about this topic in the LINX Best Current Practice document on "Operating Mailing Lists" (see Appendix B Link: #B ).

As discussed at the start of this document, ISPs may have customers large enough to apply this BCP on their own account, and manage their own customers or users. In these cases the ISP may depend on their customer to deal with the sender of UBE, and need not apply the sanctions discussed below, such as disconnecting these large customers from the Internet. However, the ISP remains accountable to the wider community, which will expect the ISP to be reasonably assured that their customer will indeed take suitable action in the ISP's stead.

Requirements

• The ISP MUST act upon proven cases of sending UBE and MUST ensure that the contracts with their customers enable them to act effectively
effectively.
• The ISP MUST ensure that the alleged abuser is NOT informed of the identity of those who are reporting the abuse, except with their explicit permission
permission.
• The ISP MAY immediately terminate the customer's account account.
  
  • However, since ignorance of what is acceptable will remain a popular explanation for abuse, and it may be hard to determine if this was actually the case, the ISP MAY operate a 'two strikes' "two strike" policy and allow a customer to continue to operate their account after a "first offence".
• If a 'two strikes' "two strike" policy is applied, the ISP SHOULD, on the "first offence" take special steps to educate their customer as to what is acceptable behaviour and it MAY require the customer to sign a specific undertaking not to re-offend before allowing them to access the Internet again.
• If a second origination of UBE by the customer "second offence" occurs within six months the ISP MUST terminate the customer's customers account and all services connected with it. The loss of the sender's connection to the Internet from a particular e-mail email address is an important sanction in combating UBE.
• Many people cannot be bothered to report abuse, because they believe reports will not be effective. So an ISP cannot expect to see a large number of corroborating reports. Therefore just two reports which give identical messages MUST be considered to be evidence of bulk sending.
• If the ISP receives a single report of abuse it MAY conclude that there is insufficient evidence that the e-mail email was sent in bulk. It SHOULD, however, inform the customer of the reported incident and SHOULD take the opportunity to remind the customer of the unacceptability of bulk email sending and the sanctions available to combat it.
• The ISP MUST consider the possibility of collusion and forgery, and that reports of abuse may have been faked. It MUST allow the customer the opportunity to establish their innocence, and MUST act reasonably "on the balance of probability" in establishing whether abuse did in fact take place.
• The ISP may find that the customer claims that the email was in fact solicited. The ISP MUST NOT accept this claim unless the email address was obtained and processed "fairly and lawfully".
• If the email was sent out through mailing list software the ISP MUST consider the likelihood that the email was solicited but this fact has been forgotten. However, the ISP SHOULD encourage mailing list owners to keep records of subscription requests and to validate their authenticity. The ISP MUST ensure that it is straightforward for people to remove themselves from mailing lists run by their customers.
• Where the sender of UBE is not directly a customer of the ISP, then the ISP MAY delegate the responsibility to enforce this BCP to its own the customer, provided that the ISP takes reasonable steps to ensure that the customer will do so.

at http://www.linx.net/noncore/bcp/ube-bcp.html