Subject: Organizationed spam RE: [Sip] WiMAX Summit'05 - Paris - France

From: "Thomas Gal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 17:35:11 -0800

Harald and community,

	Observation/Comment from a concerned member. I've never really
complained about anything before, but if I search over the last couple of
months (I did a searchback to Oct 1) across the following mailing lists to
which I'm subscribed:

XCON,AVT,IPSEC,IPTEL,SIP,SIPPING,MMUSIC etc

	I get notices from Peter Lewis and Gunther Palmer, sometimes I get
5+ copies of these notices. For example I have 11 notices about the summer
'05 wimax summit in paris france that I haven't deleted floating around my
mailbox! 5 Just today between SIMPLE,XCON,SIPPING,MMUSIC, and SIP!!!!! Who
knows how many more went out. I thought this was a little bit
unacceptable(I'm trying to be polite for some reason I guess) as the IETF
itself has 1 announce list for announcing things, and as far as I'm
concerned this is basically spam. I sent a message on November 11th which is
attached basically saying to the principals of this organization that:

- -I'm receiving multiple notices, 
- -think it's unreasonable, 
- -the people sending the notices are not participants on the lists so are
clearly exploiting the mailing list
- -that the IETF has an announce list which they should work out appropriate
submission and distribution through, as I'm sure that IETF memebers would in
fact like to be notified of their events, but appropriately.

	I'm copying them on this message again as well, and personally I
feel that if you look at 

http://tinyurl.com/6mvnc
- -and-
http://tinyurl.com/452e5

	You can see that peter lewis has been sending bulk unsolicited email
through IETF lists for some time, and Gunter Palmer appears to be a new up
and coming distributor. 

	That said, I never got a response, so I'm inclined to say we should
boot them from IETF mailing lists, and ideally get a response and arrange to
have them submit 1 notice 1 time to go out to the IETF announce list, or
perhaps even a separate list which is specifically for folks wishing to
address the IETF population at large. Certainly only willing participants to
the IETF/IETF announce list should be getting these notices. I do recall a
gentleman mentioning in DC something about coordinating reasonable official
submissions, and I feel this falls in line with that request. There's enough
of a problem with spam that we can't do anything about, and I think dealing
with this situation properly could have the potential to not only reduce
some junk mail, but also allow that information to go out in an appropriate
fashion to willing recipients, and perhaps educate some people (who's
company supposedly caters to technology folk) along the way of proper
edicate for such matters. And if they don't respond, who cares, just boot em
and let them suffer the consequences.

	Perhaps comments from a few more IETF folk could establish that this
crap is not welcome, or is it just me? 

	And to the principals of this orgnaization. Who are you to not
respond to something like this? This is very indicative of pathetic business
practices, and makes me inclined to say bad things about your organizations
morals, and the organization itself, and frankly the people on top who don't
respond as well. Don't you realize that the people who get the most spam and
are more annoyed than anyone by it are the audience you supposedly are
catering to?

- -Tom

[email-masked]  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On 
> Behalf Of Gunter
> Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 6:28 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: [Sip] WiMAX Summit'05 - Paris - France
> 
> . What is the business model for WiMAX? 
> . What do we learn from earlier deployments? 
> . What about the future extensions of the standard? 
> . How is addressed the interoperability challenge? 
> 
> These questions, among others, will be addressed during the 
> second edition of the WiMAX Summit to be organised in Paris 
> next 5-8 April 2005.
> 
>  
> 
> Get all details at:
> 
> http://www.upperside.fr/wimax05/wimax2005intro.htm 
> <http://www.upperside.fr/wimax05/wimax2005intro.htm> 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> 
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 18:15:08 -0800

Hi -

> From: "Thomas Gal" <[email-masked]>
> To: <[email-masked]>
> Cc: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 5:35 PM
> Subject: Organizationed spam RE: [Sip] WiMAX Summit'05 - Paris - France
...
> crap is not welcome, or is it just me?
...

I think it depends on the conference / CFP, the mailing list, and how specific
the posting is.  For example, if someone were to post information on a paper
directly relevant to my working group's work that was going to be presented
at some conference, I'd welcome such a posting.  If someone posted a generic
CFP for a conference with no keywords in common with what my working group
is doing, I'd object.  Between those two extremes are many shades of grey,
but for the working group lists I'm subscribed to, it hasn't been a real problem
for me.

Randy

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 08:45:51 +0100

[email-masked] has already been denied posting rights on at least 
one IETF WG mailing list because of this behaviour.

Is it time to dig out RFC 3683/BCP 83?

BTW - has anyone, anywhere ever seen a response from him/them when they 
have been asked to stop spamming the IETF lists?

                  Harald

--On onsdag, desember 15, 2004 17:35:11 -0800 Thomas Gal 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Harald and community,
>
> concerned this is basically spam. I sent a message on November 11th which
> is attached basically saying to the principals of this organization that:
>
> - -that the IETF has an announce list which they should work out
> appropriate submission and distribution through, as I'm sure that IETF
> memebers would in fact like to be notified of their events, but
> appropriately.
>
> boot them from IETF mailing lists, and ideally get a response and arrange
> to have them submit 1 notice 1 time to go out to the IETF announce list,
> or perhaps even a separate list which is specifically for folks wishing to
> address the IETF population at large. Certainly only willing participants
> to the IETF/IETF announce list should be getting these notices. I do
> recall a gentleman mentioning in DC something about coordinating
> reasonable official submissions, and I feel this falls in line with that
> request. There's enough of a problem with spam that we can't do anything
> about, and I think dealing with this situation properly could have the
> potential to not only reduce some junk mail, but also allow that
> information to go out in an appropriate fashion to willing recipients,
> and perhaps educate some people (who's company supposedly caters to
> technology folk) along the way of proper edicate for such matters. And if
> they don't respond, who cares, just boot em and let them suffer the
> consequences.
>
> respond to something like this? This is very indicative of pathetic
> business practices, and makes me inclined to say bad things about your
> organizations morals, and the organization itself, and frankly the people
> on top who don't respond as well. Don't you realize that the people who
> get the most spam and are more annoyed than anyone by it are the audience
> you supposedly are catering to?
>
>
>
> - -Tom
>
> [email-masked]
>
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> iQA/AwUBQcDmA+q9bQOx/5ayEQLGFACeLMNxzQyiRwgB0n5KdxPHD0s3LxAAnRcl
> NfKI62xgIbF44qYivQyJ4Dmj
> =IY/A
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:05:17 +0000

> have been asked to stop spamming the IETF lists?

No, I haven't.   It is clearly a commercial posting, and should be blocked.

I have "soammed" v6ops and ipng in the past with an IPv6 event announcement,
but this was for a non-profit event, and although I didn't feel comfortable
doing so, I felt it was OK as a regular contributor to both WGs.  I also
didn't get any complaints to me as it happens (thanks :)

I think both metrics should be applied when "spam" complaints arise.

Tim

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 17:02:12 +0100

Could this not be used for an enhancement? The IETF needs to globalize, to 
motivate and reward its members (see current analysis), to motivate (cf. 
RFC 3869) local Govs (meeting, debates, PR announces) and industries (PR on 
products) and to get "independent" and stable money for its budget.

Why not to add an "annoucement" menu on the IETF page. Where announces 
could be presented in a mechanism similar to Drafts (with anouncements for 
information and some kind of sponsoring for key meeting/announces). With at 
least three keys (per WG, per Topics, per Location). This could only help 
outreach, Members to meet f2f locally and cross-WG information. Also, this 
could be contracted to ISOC or another party to run the commercial 
announces in a commercial way (products announces, commercial events, etc.) 
and get most probably substantial financial resources for the RFC Editor. 
In using an RSS I do not think it would impose an extra worthless reading 
on the Members and could help a lot keeping abreast without having to scan 
scores of blogs and mailing lists.

jfc

---

From: Gene Gaines <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:15:59 -0500

Based on the comments over the last several days and my
interpretation of RFC 3683/BCP 83, I ask the firm of
Upper Side, Paris France, to STOP POSTING COMMERCIAL NOTICES
to the IETF general list [email-masked].

I quote from RFC 3683/BCP 83:

"Guidelines have been developed for dealing with abusive
behavior (c.f., Section 3.2 of [1] and [2]). Although not
exhaustive, examples of abusive or otherwise inappropriate
postings to IETF mailing lists include:

   o  unsolicited bulk e-mail;

   o discussion of subjects unrelated to IETF policy, meetings,
      activities, or technical concerns;

   o unprofessional commentary, regardless of the general subject;
     and,

   o announcements of conferences, events, or activities that
     are not sponsored or endorsed by the Internet Society or
     IETF."

I made a phone call to Upper Side this morning (always pleasant
when an transatlantic phone call costs less than the cup of
coffee in my hand), was told Peter Lewis left the employ of
Upper Side two years ago.  The two managing partners of Upper
Side, Remi Scavenius and Michel Gosse, are receiving copies
of this email.

Upper Side is a for-profit organizations that organizes
conferences and provides training in IT. The quality or value of
their activities is not the point. Such commercial announcements
are not to be sent to IETF lists.

Thomas Gal states that he sent email to the company on November 11
objecting to such SPAM commercial emails and he received no
reply.  As a personal courtesy, I will appreciate a reply to
this request from Upper Side management off-list.

If I am wrong in understanding IETF policy, please let me know.

Gene Gaines
[email-masked]
Sterling, Virginia USA

--

---

From: Adam Roach <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:03:28 -0600

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

>  [email-masked] has already been denied posting rights on at 
least one IETF WG mailing list because of this behaviour.
>  BTW - has anyone, anywhere ever seen a response from him/them when 
they have been asked to stop spamming the IETF lists?

I have not. In my capacity of a chair of one of the lists to which this 
spam was sent, I give Gunter notice that such behavior is unacceptable. 
Several days later, I have received no response.

I tried to find a mechanism for content-based filtering -- for example, 
to hold any posts containing the string "upperside.fr" for moderation -- 
but the current mailman interface doesn't seem to support this kind of 
content filtering.

/a

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 08:39:30 -0500

In message <[email-masked]>, Harald Tvei
>have been asked to stop spamming the IETF lists?

I've never received any replies to my notes, and I've co-chaired two of 
the working groups that have received his ads.

Btw, I should note that 3683 explicitly bans most conference notices:

   Although not exhaustive,
   examples of abusive or otherwise inappropriate postings to IETF
   mailing lists include:

...

   o  announcements of conferences, events, or activities that are not
      sponsored or endorsed by the Internet Society or IETF.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb