[anti-abuse-wg] the mandatory abuse field

Frank,

On Saturday, 2012-07-28 21:19:38 +0200, 
Frank Gadegast <ripe-anti-spam-wg at powerweb.de> wrote:
> I really have the feeling, that some in the community fear
> a mandatory abuse field, and try find any strange argument
> against it, but I really cannot see why.

I think the resistance comes because a number of related ideas have
been tried in the past, and they have failed. So we'd like to see
whatever abuse reporting changes made don't just add to the current
confusion without actually improving anything.
 
> If somebody does not want to receive abuse reports or
> does not want to do something against abuse originating
> from his own resources or likes to receive them not via
> email or has whatever else reason, well, name it
> this-email-address-is-not-being-read at yourdomain.com
> or
> no-reply at example.com
> or send it to devnull ...

Yes, that is correct. So the question is "why make it mandatory then?"
Your answer seems to be:
 
> On the other end, a mandatory abuse field will
> clean up everything in RIPEs database, remove
> the unparseble remarks, will help the abuse teams
> to receive reports only to ONE address, because
> sender can be educated, abuse tools can be
> simplified and integrated in webpages easily aso ...
> A mandatory abuse field has that much advantages
> for everybody who likes to work against abuse,
> that I cannot understand, why people, that do not
> want the same for there own reasons are against
> it. Let us optimize our procedures and
> if you do not want to participate, well
> set the email address to whatever or ignore every
> incoming mail ...

This all seems unrelated to whether a field is mandatory or not. Rather
this seems more like an exercise in making the abuse reporting
information in the database more rational - which seems like quite a
reasonable goal.
 
> Those people are not concerned, that they
> have to do something against abuse coming
> from there OWN resources, it must be the people
> that are causing the abuse problem in the first place,
> its there business, and so they are worried, that
> others find easier and better methods in preventing
> abuse.
> 
> So, my personal summary is:
> ---
> Anybody, who is against a mandatory abuse field,
> is a professional spammer, abuser, maintains
> a bot net or sells open proxies or other services
> used for abusing others.
> They are criminals to my opinion.
> 
> But thats only my impression ...
> ---

I promise you I am neither a professional spammer, abuser, nor do I
maintain a bot net or sell open proxies or other services used for
abusing others.

As I said in the beginning, I'd just like to make sure that whatever is
done actually improves things.

Mind you, I'm not totally opposed to a mandatory abuse field, I just
don't see the point without a policy governing how it is used. I would
be quite supportive of a policy which said something like:

  If someone reports that an abuse mailbox is unresponsive to the RIPE
  NCC, they will investigate. If the RIPE NCC also finds the abuse
  mailbox is unresponsive, then they will alert the resource holder. If
  the resource holder has not fixed the problem within 30 days, then
  the resources will be revoked. If the holder tries to hide an
  unresponsive abuse mailbox, for example by adding a filter that
  allows RIPE NCC mails through but ignores all others, then resources
  will be revoked immediately.

I just think that such a policy has no chance of being approved. :)

Cheers,

--
Shane