Anti-Abuse Working Group

This RIPE Working Group is not the place to report abuse/spam. We have posted information about how to deal with spam and network abuse elsewhere on this site.

As the Internet has evolved, so has the scope and scale of network abuse. Unsolicited bulk email (spam) is often merely a symptom of deeper abuse such as viruses or botnets. Consequently, the Anti-Abuse Working Group has a wide scope, to include all relevant kinds of abuse.

The technical details of spam and other abuse constantly vary, in terms of application channel and technique. Channel examples include SMTP, SIP, XMPP and HTTP. Examples of techniques range from buffer overrun to social engineering.

Within scope are all systems and mechanisms, both technical and non-technical, that are used to create, control, and make money from such abuse.

While areas such as hosting illegal content or copyright infringement are not seen as a central part of the working group's remit, they are unquestionably bound up in other aspects of network abuse and, as such, may be areas of interest.

The working group considers both technical and non-technical aspects of abuse, with the following goals:

Produce and continue to update a BCP (Best Common Practice) document for ISPs similar in nature to RIPE-409 but covering a wider range of possible abusive behaviours.
Provide advice (beyond that of the BCP) to relevant parties within the RIPE region such as ISPs, governments and law enforcement agencies on strategic and operational matters.
Discuss and disseminate information on technical and non-technical methods of preventing or reducing network abuse.