[ppml] Last Call for Comment: Policy Proposal 2003-3

[Jeff S Wheeler]

On Tue, 2003-11-18 at 18:03, Leo Bicknell wrote:
> What I suspect happens now is some spammers are listed in whois.
> By receiving the complaints directly they can use that feedback to
> tailor their runs to not generate alarms.  They can also reply to
> the direct complaints in a way that seems like action is being taken
> without actually doing anything, delaying the anti-spam services
> from declaring them a spammer.  Without them listed the complaints
> will go directly to the upstream who can disconnect them without
> giving them the feedback loop, and (at least in a few cases) without
> the runaround.

As someone with direct experience in this field, I can state with some
authority that spammers would much rather have complaints go directly to
them than to their upstream transit providers.

If a transit provider is a willing party to spam, as Owen DeLong states
would be necessary to take advantage of 2003-3, that transitor expends
resources to direct the complaints they receive to the customer
responsible for the address space.

2003-3 will not have any appreciable impact on spam, because it is not
to the spammers' advantage to direct complaints to their vendors. I'll
leave it up to the readers to decide whether or not they would prefer to
complain to transitors or spammers directly, but I do not believe any
spammers will take advantage of this policy in the manner that has been
suggested by Owen DeLong.

Whether or not spammers actually take corrective action upon receipt of
whois-based complaints depends entirely upon the level of organization
of the spam shop, and their motives. However, it is usually a waste of
time to complain to transitors who have already made the decision to
condone spamming on their network. If the end-user of the address space
is published, then complain to them. If you are dissatisfied with the
results, then the blacklisting organizations are a better resource than
abuse at transitor, who will either /dev/null your complaints; or simply
forward them to the end-user again.

--
Jeff S Wheeler <jsw at five-elements.com>