On 2/1/11 12:45 PM, Brian Nisbet wrote:
I will finish by restating that my reasons for this, and the reasons of those who discussed it with me, were not based on shooting the messenger, however it may look. I cannot, of course, empirically prove that, but I'm hoping that you may accept my word and that the actions of the WG both now and in the future will back that up.
Hi Brian, a lot of people actually *do* things in the anti-abuse community, and Richard has been part of some of the most active and effective ones for years now. As well as Suresh, FWIW. In the meanwhile, almost all is being carried forth inside this same WG requires several months and rarely ends up in something useful to the community. Or -at least- this is my (strictly operational) perception: I might be proved wrong. All the criticism Richard raised about RIPE (both NCC *and* community, IMHO) behavior in rogue network assignments in http://www.spamhaus.org/news.lasso?article=663 could turn into an interesting discussion about what RIPE community could actually *do* in order to inhibit similar things to happen again. Instead, everything turned out in what we observe here. Unfortunate coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe not. Just let's look back at what happened here after something completely different like http://labs.ripe.net/Members/jsq/economic-incentives-for-internet-security was posted here. The discussion suddenly turned into how "Spam in general cannot be defined". A discussion the email industry had almost 10 years ago and moved forth. And about how "It doesn't make any sense in almost all cases". Proposals about how to add correctives to the paper? Zero. About how to use the idea in order to obtain better policies? Zero. I wonder if this is really the "Anti-Abuse Working Group" or turned into the "Anti-Anti-Abuse Working Group" instead. IMHO, the question is not whether "Richard’s comments unfairly damaged the reputation [...] the Anti-Abuse Working Group" -to quote an extract from your minutes from Rome meeting- but if this working group still has a reason to exist in its current shape and still has any reputation at all. I observe that a lot of work is being done on several aspects of spam and network abuse mitigation, in a lot of places. Only, it rarely happens here. We should all ask ourselves why, and -most important- how to change this. And possibly find the answers... -- # Emanuele Balla # # # System & Network Engineer # Cell: +39 348 7747907 # # Spin s.r.l. - AS6734 # Phone: +39 040 9869090 # # Trieste # Email: balla@staff.spin.it #