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@ripe.net 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