[anti-abuse-wg] Economic incentives for more cooperation in fighting spam (new article on RIPE Labs)

Brian Nisbet <brian.nisbet at heanet.ie> wrote:

> At RIPE 55 it was agreed by the community that to focus on spam at this
> point was the wrong way to tackle the problem and so the group changed,
> both in name and charter, to become what it is now.  I do not believe
> there is any strong feeling in the community to reverse that decision,
> nor do I think there is any organisational or technical reason to do so.

I fully endorse that view, and everything else Brian wrote.

> The RIPE NCC has members, but the RIPE community, of which the AA-WG
> is a part has none.  I suspect "participants" is the best word to use.

I think what Peter meant there, was Internet users in the RIPE service
region.  Of which "participants" are, sadly, no more than a small subset.

The point of the name-change was that we can no longer separate "pure"
spam from the many other abusive activities that are needed to enable it,
while spam itself is the conduit for other abusive and criminal activity.
In other words, e-crime and abuse has become a self-sustaining eco-system.

Since the AAWG membership elected Brian and myself as co-chairs, we have
been working hard to identify what changes will need to take place for
the RIPE community to become more pro-active in the fight against spam.
Initially we found that there was a need for more (and more complete)
information about the problem.  So we have worked to bring to the AAWG
workshops at the RIPE meetings, reports on the present threat level, and
presentations from specialists in the community dealing with particular
aspects of abuse.  This will lay the foundations for what we need to do
next - which I see as falling into two categories:

(a) major rework on published documents such as RIPE 409 (and possibly
    the creation of new documents) to establish what actions are needed
    within the community to mitigate the threat from spam and malware.
(b) introducing proposals (within the RIPE Policy Development Process)
    to make such adjustments as are needed in terms of how the community
    should manage its resources and information.  I introduced some of
    those ideas during the meeting in Prague, hoping for some feedback
    from that audience on the relevance and deliverability of the ideas.
    Now we need to get started on the formal part of the processes.

This will be the tricky bit.  Almost everyone (except abusers) agrees
that abuse needs to stop - but when it is pointed out that achieving
that would involve changes in how each of them currently operates (and
that in many cases requires resources and expenditure) their enthusiasm
for "stopping spam" tends to rapidly diminish.  We will have to see just
how willing the RIPE community would be, to make the changes that are
essential in order to reduce the prevalence of abuse.  But in terms of
resource abuse it's become clear that the RIPE community is seen as
having rather more issues than any of the other regional communities.

Let me be clear on one point: there are only two ways to stop spam and
abuse: one is to make the cost and (perceived) risk to anyone sending
spam or committing abuse, exceed the profits/benefits from so doing,
and the other is to switch off the internet.

-- 
Richard Cox
The Other Co-chair, RIPE Anti-Abuse WG