Charter for new RIPE "anti-spam" Working Group: Final Draft

[John Martin <]

Please find attached the final draft of the charter for the proposed
anti-spam WG which I plan to present at the plenary on Tuesday or Wednesday
for approval.

Thanks to James for agreeing to act as chair.

Rgds,

John
--

Charter for new RIPE Working Group: anti-spam
Chair: James Aldridge, JA47

1.   Aim

The problem of "spam"  on the Internet is well known to almost all
users [Vix98]. Its use (abuse) is increasing and in many cases it
can cause severe technical and operational problems to network
operators and users; in particular those hosts which are target as
email "relays".

Since technical measures to combat this network abuse have not
been widely deployed, it was proposed at a BoF session on the
subject at RIPE 29 [spamBoF98], to form a Working Group which
would aim to tackle the problem from two non-technical angles:

*  To develop a "Code of Conduct" to which ISPs might agree to
   adhere. It is foreseen that this document might be used as an
   indication that a signing party would make efforts to ensure
   that their customers are not responsible for abuse of the
   network resources of others or that they would be prepared to
   take actions to combat network abuse.

*  To make a recommendation as to the feasibility and usefulness
   of a "Centre for European Network Abuse Resolution (CENAR)".
   This centre would not handle individual abuse complaints, but
   might, for example, provide a conflict resolution service if
   ISPs are unable to resolve issues regarding abuse complaints
   themselves (for instance an ISP does not co-operate in abuse-
   complaints matters). The Centre could also help with
   deployment of technical solutions and might pre-empt
   governmental regulation through the perception of a degree of
   "self governance" within the European ISP community. The
   proposed working group would define the statutes, target
   audience, workplan and propose a financial model for such a
   service.


2.   Who can participate
The work of this group will be carried out principally by email.
It is proposed to meet at the RIPE meetings in order to finalise
any documents. Participation in RIPE working Groups is open to
all. To join, send a message to majordomo@localhost containing the
text: subscribe anti-spam.

The first face-to-face meeting will be at RIPE 31.

3.   Workplan
This charter should be presented for approval at the plenary
session of RIPE 30. If approved at the plenary, a Working Group
would be formed with the nominated chair. This working group
would be expected to work on the two issues in parallel and would
aim to have at least some draft documents ready for discussion at
RIPE 31.

4.   References

[spamBoF] Minutes  of the BoF session at RIPE 29 entitled,
          "Deployment of Anti-spam measures".

[Vix98]   Information on spam / anti-spam tools can be found at:
          http://spam.abuse.net/

--end

John Martin
TERENA, Singel 466-468, NL - 1017 AW Amsterdam
phone:  +31 20 530 4488 **
fax:    +31 20 530 4499 **
http://www.terena.nl/

** Please note new telephone and fax numbers