Status of this Memo

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Copyright Notice

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).

Abstract

This document defines an extensible format and MIME type that may be used by network operators to report email abuse to other parties. This format is intended as a machine readable replacement for various existing abuse report formats currently used in Internet email.

Table of Contents

1.  Introduction
2.  Intent
3.  Requirements
4.  Format of Email Abuse Reports
5.  Format of 'message/abuse-report' Content Type
6.  MIME Type Registration of message/abuse-report
7.  IANA Considerations
8.  Security Considerations
9.  References
    9.1  Normative References
    9.2  Informative References
§  Author's Address
A.  Appendix A - An Sample Abuse Report
§  Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements

1. Introduction

As the spam problem has grown in the past few years, network operators have begun to exchange abuse reports among themselves and other parties to combat this problem. However, different operators define their own formats and the receivers are forced to write custom software to interpret the many types of them. This memo seeks to define a standard extensible format and the "message/abuse-report" MIME type for abuse reports in accordance with RFC 2048Freed, N., Klensin, J. and J. Postel, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Four: Registration Procedures, November 1996.[4]. This format and content type is intended to be used within the scope of the framework of the "multipart/report" content type defined in RFC 3462Vaudreuil, G., The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages, January 2003.[1].

This document only defines the format and content type to be used for these reports. Determination of where these reports should be sent is outside the scope of this document.

2. Intent

The abuse reports defined in this document are intended for several purposes:

a

To inform ISPs about email abuse originating from their networks

b

To provide feedback to email service providers about abuse complaints

Note that the abuse reports defined in this document are limited to reporting email abuse only.

3. Requirements

The following requirements are necessary for abuse reports :

a

They must be both human and machine readable

b

Copy of the original email message or email headers must be enclosed in order to allow the receiver to properly handle the report.

4. Format of Email Abuse Reports

An email abuse report is a MIME message with a top level MIME content type of "multipart/report" (as defined in RFC 3462Vaudreuil, G., The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages, January 2003.[1]). The following apply:

a

The "report-type" parameter of "multipart/report" type is set to "abuse-report".

b

The first MIME part of the message contains a human readable description of the report

c

The second MIME part of the message contains a machine readable abuse report with the content type of "message/abuse-report" (defined later on in this document).

d

The third MIME part of the message contains either a full copy of the original message with a MIME content type of "message/rfc822" (as defined in RFC 2046Vaudreuil, G., The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages, January 2003.[1]) OR a copy of the headers from the original message with MIME content type of "text/rfc822-headers" (as defined in RFC 3462Vaudreuil, G., The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages, January 2003.[1]).

e

Each abuse report should related to a single originating message.

f

The subject line of the abuse report should read as "Email Abuse Report for IP X.X.X.X" where "X.X.X.X" is the source IP of the MTA from which the original message was received.

g

Note that unlike the definition in RFC 3462Vaudreuil, G., The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages, January 2003.[1], all three parts are required for abuse reports.

5. Format of 'message/abuse-report' Content Type

The message/abuse-report content type consists of several header fields as follows:

a

"Source-IP:" - contains an IPv4 or IPv6 address of the MTA from which the original message was received.

b

"Received-Date:" - date the original message was received. This field is formatted in according to the definition in section 3.3 of RFC 2822Resnick, P., Internet Message Format, April 2001.[2]

c

"Original-Message-ID:" - contains the RFC 2822Resnick, P., Internet Message Format, April 2001.[2] Message-ID of the original message

6. MIME Type Registration of message/abuse-report

This section provides the media type registration application (as per RFC 2048Freed, N., Klensin, J. and J. Postel, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Four: Registration Procedures, November 1996.[4], which will be submitted to IANA after IESG approval of this document.

To: ietf-types@iana.org

Subject: Registration of MIME media types message/abuse-report

MIME media type name: message

MIME subtype name: abuse-report

Required parameters: none

Optional parameters: none

Encoding considerations:

"7bit" encoding is sufficient and MUST be used to maintain readability when viewed by non-MIME mail readers.

Security considerations:

See section 3 of RFC 3462Vaudreuil, G., The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages, January 2003.[1]

Interoperability considerations: none

Published specification: this document

Applications which use this media type: Abuse helpdesk software for ISPs

Additional information:

Magic number(s): none

File extension(s): none

Macintosh File Type Code(s): none

Person & email address to contact for further information:

Yakov Shafranovich <ietf@shaftek.org>

Intended usage: COMMON

Author/Change controller: IESG

7. IANA Considerations

After IESG approval, IANA is expected to register MIME type "message/abuse-report" using the application provided in this document.

8. Security Considerations

See section 3 of RFC 3462Vaudreuil, G., The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages, January 2003.[1]

9. References

9.1 Normative References

9.2 Informative References

Author's Address

Appendix A. Appendix A - An Sample Abuse Report

From: <abusedesk@example.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2005 17:40:36 EDT
Subject: Email Abuse Report for IP 10.67.41.167
To: <abuse@example.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/report; report-type=abuse-report; boundary="part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary"

--part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

This is an email abuse report for an email message received from IP 10.67.41.167 on Thu, 8 Mar 2005 14:00:00 EDT.


--part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary
Content-Type: message/abuse-report

Source-IP: 10.67.41.167
Received-Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2005 14:00:00 EDT
Original-Message-ID: 8787KJKJ3K4J3K4J3K4J3.mail@example.net


--part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary
Content-Type: message/rfc822
Content-Disposition: inline

From: <somespammer@example.netglt;
Received: from mailserver.example.net (mailserver.example.net [10.67.41.167])
	  by example.com with ESMTP id M63d4137594e46; Thu, 08 Mar 2005 14:00:00 -0400
To: <Undisclosed Recipients>
Subject: Earn money
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain
Message-ID: 8787KJKJ3K4J3K4J3K4J3.mail@example.net
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 12:31:03 -0500

Spam Spam Spam
Spam Spam Spam
Spam Spam Spam
Spam Spam Spam
--part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary--

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Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.

Acknowledgment

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