[anti-abuse-wg] Economic incentives for more cooperation in fighting spam (new article on RIPE Labs)

Peter,

"peter h" wrote the following on 06/07/2010 22:17:
>
> RIPE could start with reorganizing it's lame anti-abuse group to a more specific anti-spam
> working group and start propagating already known facts to it's "customers".

I'm very sorry that you feel that way about the working group but 
hopefully I can address some of your points.

First off, as Fearghas has already pointed out, RIPE doesn't have any 
customers.  The RIPE NCC has members, but the RIPE community, of which 
the AA-WG is a part has none.  I suspect "participants" is the best word 
to use.

At RIPE 55 it was agreed by the community that to focus on spam at this 
point was the wrong way to tackle the problem and so the group changed, 
both in name and charter, to become what it is now.  I do not believe 
there is any strong feeling in the community to reverse that decision, 
nor do I think there is any organisational or technical reason to do so.

> Such as "best practices for running broadband networks" or "securing mobile networks against spam"

The RIPE 409 document, while in need of updating, exists and more 
documentation is planned.  Of course all of this will be produced by the 
community and we would welcome your input, especially if all of these 
facts are known.

> An active campain directed to all ripe "users" would be a good starting point, educating
> and spreading recepies of successful ways to prevent customers windows-computers of
> becoming spam-senders.
>
> This could be followed-up with statistics that pinpoints "sleazy ISP's" and lobbying
> with politicans to sharpen the lame legal tools that is available.

This is a lot of work, disregarding the ambiguity over the idea of a 
RIPE "user".  It's also substantially more complicated than it may at 
first seem.  The RIPE NCC, assisted by various members of the community, 
are already engaging with governments and LEAs around the world to 
educate, advise and to improve the experience for all Internet citizens. 
  However if there are further activities that the members of the RIPE 
NCC feel they should pursue, these matters should be raised to the NCC 
and ultimately agreed by the membership.

> We need to take the spam-problem seriously. It hurts out ability to use email, it steals
> our time and ressources. And it's a channel to even more serious crime.

Trust me, Richard and I as co-chairs of the WG and the good folks in the 
NCC, along with the community participants, take the problem of spam and 
all network abuse extremely seriously.  We are always happy to talk 
about any initiatives that anyone may have to ease this issue, but such 
discussions are always easier once as much disambiguation and 
clarification as possible has taken place.

Regards,

Brian
Co-chair, RIPE Anti-Abuse WG