BOF: Network abuse

Thursday 5 September, Kitakyushu International Conference Centre, Kitakyushu, Japan

Minutes

Meeting commenced: 6:00pm

Chair: Gerard Ross

The Chair introduced the BOG and explained the agenda. He encouraged a wide range of participation in the discussions and expressed the wish that useful ideas could be generated in this session.

Contents

1. Current APNIC abuse procedures
2. Spam status & antispam scheme in Taiwan
3. Report on abuse handling in Korea
4. Proposed protocol for APNIC abuse handling

1. Current APNIC abuse procedures

[Presentations]

Sam Dickinson, APNIC

This presentation provided an overview of current APNIC practices for handling abuse reports sent to APNIC.

Questions and discussion

• It was noted that all mail to abuse@apnic.net receives an autoresponse and the original mail is discarded. Therefore, there is no way to gauge exactly how much mail and spam is sent to that address.
• It was noted that there is some resistance to automated responses from abuse mailboxes. However, the level of spam being received means that practical methods are needed to shut out the noise sent to these mailboxes and it is not possible for humans to deal with all of the mail being received.
• APNIC's efforts to educate users and networks about spam were discussed. It was noted that the initiators of spam are hard to educate while the receiver side is very sensitive to spam. APNIC aims to educate members and operators to secure their networks. APNIC also educates end-users who complain about spam, because dealing with abuse reports creates an administrative overhead for APNIC.
• It was noted that APNIC sometimes advises complainants to contact the legal authorities in their own country. APNIC also provides information on request to enforcement agencies on how to use the whois database. No private information is released.

Action items

• None

Top

2. Spam status & antispam scheme in Taiwan

[Presentations]

David Chen, TWNIC

This presentation provided an overview of spam and anti-spam activities in Taiwan. The presenter explained that the large amount of IP addresses in Taiwan blocked by spam blacklists means that action needs to be taken by networks in Taiwan.

The presentation discussed current anti-spam practices of users and networks in Taiwan. TWNIC's spam filtering efforts may lead to legitimate mail being blocked from reaching TWNIC. TWNIC has formed an anti-spam task force and encourages all TW networks to join. In 2002, an electronic advertisement mail management law was drafted. The presentation also discussed obstacles involved in dealing effectively with spam.

Questions and discussion

• It was noted that Hinet, which often has portions of its IP addresses blocked by spam blacklists, seeks to resolve the problem with the spamming user, then requests the RBL to remove the address range from their list.

Action items

• None

Top

3. Report on abuse handling in Korea

[Presentations]

Moo-Ho Cheon, KRNIC

This presentation provided an overview of the spam situation in Korea and efforts by the Korean government to control it. The presentation included statistics on spam received by Korean residents. Current anti-spam legislation in Korea is "opt-out".

Questions and discussion

• Comment about that there is a perception that a lot of spammers were using open relays in Korea but that the government had been effective in educating networks to close their open relays.

Action items

• None

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4. Proposed protocol for APNIC abuse handling

[Presentations]

Gerard Ross, APNIC

This presentation provided an overview of the new abuse handling procedures APNIC would like to adopt, which include clearer information on the website, increased use of standardised responses, and more efficient procedures for dealing with invalid contact reports to APNIC.

The presenter also suggested that in future, the network abuse BOF should be longer. He also sought opinions on whether APNIC should establish network abuse discussion mailing list.

Questions and discussion

• There was no further discussion due to a lack of time.
• It was decided to continue discussions on abuse on mailing lists after the meeting.

Action items

• None

Meeting closed: 7:10pm

Minuted by: Sam Dickinson

Open action items

• None

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