[anti-abuse-wg] working in new version of 2019-04 (Validation of "abuse-mailbox")

In message <20200115080615.GQ72330 at Space.Net>, 
Gert Doering <gert at space.net> wrote:

>So why is it preferrable to send mails which are not acted on, as
>opposed to "not send mail because you know beforehand that the other
>network is not interested"?

Not sure that I understand fully the context of the question here, 
but in relation to what I suggested, which would be an "eBay-like"
public review collection & publication service, it would be, and is,
always helpful to know which networks just don't give a damn about
being responsible in responding to abuse arising from their networks.
Because there are these things called blacklists.

>I can see that it is frustrating - but I still cannot support a policy
>change which will not help dealing with irresponsible networks in any
>way, but at the same time increases costs and workload for those that
>do the right thing alrady.

As I have said, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him
drink."

No matter how much any of us here might wish it, we should at
long last resign ourselves to the unambigous and ever-present reality
that no significant portion of the RIPE connunity is ever going to be
persuaded to do -anything- in the way of forcing, or even just strongly
encouraging good behavior and/or social responsibility on the part of
independent individual network operators.  It just isn't going to happen,
ever.  We should thus move on and should take heed of ancient wisdom of
1 Corinthians 13:11:

    When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child,
    I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish
    things.

It is a childish thing to still hope or believe that any part of RIPE
or its community will ever take any meaningful action to *directly*
influence the behavior of networks that simply wish to minimize their
costs and maximize their revenue through a corporate strategy of ignoring
all acts of customer network abuse.

This is why I have suggested that, at the very least, RIPE NCC could set
up and maintain just a basic review "platform" where the public at large
can at least make it known to all observers which networks are the assholes
and which ones aren't.

>> To an extreme, there should always be a known contact responsible for
>> any network infrastructure.

Yes, but the operative word there is "should".  Who will *mandate* and
*enforce* this rule?  Not RIPE NCC and not the RIPE community.  I and
others have been on this list for years and years and the result is
as recurrent as it is entirely predictable by now.  There are those,
here and elsewhere, who religiously cling to their God-given "right"
to refuse, stubbornly, adamantly, and absolutely, to be told what to
do or how to responsibly run their networks by any other party, including
even the RIPE community.  (Hell!  Some of them are apparently not even
entirely convinced that they have any clear obligations to stay within
the bounds proscribed by criminal law!)

Thus, in short, it is well past time to move on and to put away childish
things, specifically the eternal and ever-unfulfilled forlorn hope that
either RIPE or it's community will someday, at long last, come to its
senses and start demanding even some minimal level of responsibility
and/or accountability from its members.

The only small thing that RIPE -might- actually be able to do to improve
the present situation... without all of the usual vetos from all of the
usual quarters... would be for it to set up a public review platform so
that members of the public at large could at least document, in full
public view, which networks are the shitheads and which are the good guys.
That way RIPE is not expressing *any* viewpoint itself... not about any
network and not even about what does or does not constitute "abuse" or
"responsible network behavior"... and thus just this one small thing
might actually be achievable, where all of the years of ranting and raving,
of tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth about the wanton abuse of the
Internet by networks within the RIPE community has achieved -zero-, zip,
nada, nothing of any substance in the way of prudently setting even just
a minimum floor on behavior, let alone actually enforcing that minimal
floor.

Time to put away childish things and childish hopes that RIPE will be
someday persuaded to be a part of the solution.  For the moment it
remains, as it has remained for quite some years now, a part of the
problem.  RIPE will never itself enforce -any- code of network behavior.
Period.   Full stop.  There are too many people making too much money
based on the present utter absence of any behaviorly rules, much less
enforcement, to allow that to change any time soon.

Get over it and move on.


Regards,
rfg