Frank, As discussed, I have copied my reply to the list.

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There has been an amount of discussion on this topic in both AA and DB working groups over the last few years but no concensus has been reached.

At the meeting in Lisbon it was agreed between DB and AA that as no further comments had been made, the matter was to be closed. This does not, obviously, mean that it can't be raised again and both WGs would be most interested in any proposals you may have.

This is simply weird. How can anybody not agree what Spam is ?

Many people agree what spam is, others disagree, the RIPE community is made up of many different people, but I'm not sure why a definition is important to this conversation? The matter was closed in Lisbon because no proposal had been produced since the last time one was asked for onlist. If there is now to be a proposal, then discussion will restart.

How can not anybody have an idea, how to solve the problem ?

Many people have many ideas, not all of them work. There remains no silver bullet. And any recommendation made still needs to be adopted.

Usally there are to many ideas resulting in at least something to do.

And many things have been discussed, and often solutions suggested. It is up to people to implement those suggestions or to make proposals to the RIPE community and perhaps ask the NCC to undertake a task. In addition, as we discussed in Lisbon and as we will be discussing again in Prague, the two chairs of the WG have been working with the NCC and international law enforcement to look at ways of furthering cooperation and putting procedures in place that can more directly tackle network abuse. However this is, as you must appreciate, not a simple or fast task.

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In this policy Tobias Knecht (tk@abusix.org) has stated that if he is successful in APNIC he plans to propose something similar in the RIPE region. I would suspect he is the best person to talk to about collaboration.

I am already talking to him.

Good stuff.

But as you know: he will need support from everybody to bring this proposal also to RIPE. So it would be really nice if people on this list dont strike him down because of politeness and instead support what hes doing.

Tobias and abusix have produced a number of different opinions in a very short period of time in operation, or at least in wide circulation. There is no mandate on how the members of any WG should treat the proposals of others, save to give them an honest and fair reading and treat everyone with respect. How the proposal is greeted will depend on how it is presented, but obviously the chairs will do what they can to allow for that fair hearing.

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we hope, in May, to chair another productive meeting.

What will be discussed there ? Agenda ?

We're trying to finalise the agenda at the moment, but the work that is taking place with the NCC, the RIPE community and the LEAs will be playing a major part. I hope to have a first draft by the end of this week. Obviously if any proposals are brought to the WG before the meeting on Thursday 6th, discussion time for them will be allocated on the agenda. Brian.