marf K. Li
Internet-Draft B. Leiba
Intended status: Standards Track Huawei Technologies
Expires: March 22, 2012 September 19, 2011
Email Feedback Report Type Value : not-spam
draft-ietf-marf-not-spam-feedback-02
Abstract
This document defines a new Abuse Reporting Format (ARF) feedback
report type value: "not-spam". It can be used to report a message
that was mistakenly marked as spam.
Status of this Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on March 22, 2012.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Feedback Report Type: Not-Spam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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1. Introduction
In RFC 5965 [RFC5965], an Abuse Reporting Format (ARF) is defined for
reporting email abuse. Currently two feedback report types are
defined that are related to the spam problem, and that can be used to
report abusive or fraudulent email messages:
o abuse: indicates unsolicited email or some other kind of email
abuse.
o fraud: indicates some kind of fraud or phishing activity.
This specification defines a new feedback report type: "not-spam".
It can be used to report a message that was mistakenly marked as
spam.
1.1. Discussion
In some cases, the email client receives an email message that was
incorrectly tagged as spam, perhaps by the email system, or
accidentally by the user. The email client accepts the end user's
"not-spam" report instruction, retrieves information related to the
message, and reports this email as not-spam to the email operator.
When the email operator receives the report, it can determine what
action is appropriate for the particular message and user. (The
requirement for a not-spam report type is from the Open Mobile
Alliance (OMA) Spam Report Requirement Document [OMA-SpamRep-RD].)
For example, in response to a "not-spam" report the email system can
remove the spam tag or otherwise reclassify the message, possibly
preventing future similar email for this user from being marked as
spam. The report can be used to adjust the training of an automated
classifier. After processing the report, the email operator might
send a notification to the email client about the processing result
(for example, by moving the message from one mailbox to another, such
as from "Junk" to "Inbox").
In most cases, "not-spam" reports will probably not be taken on their
own, but will be considered along with other information, analysis of
the message, etc. Because different users have different needs and
different views of what constitutes spam, reports from one user might
or might not be applicable to others. And because users might
sometimes press a "report not spam" button accidentally, immediate
strong action, such as marking all similar messages as "good" based
on a single report, is probably not the right approach. Recipients
of "not-spam" reports need to consider what's right in their
environments.
There are anti-spam systems that use "not spam" feedback today. All
of them take the reports and mix them with other spam reports and
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other data, using their own algorithms, to determine appropriate
action. In no case do the existing systems use a "not spam" report
as an immediate, automatic override.
2. Feedback Report Type: Not-Spam
This document only defines a new feedback report type, "not-spam",
extending the Email Feedback Reports specification [RFC5965].
In the first MIME part of the feedback report message, the end user
or the email client can add information to indicate why the message
is not spam -- for example, because the originator or its domain is
well known.
3. Example
In the example, Joe, a pharmaceuticals sales representative, has
received a message about discount pharmaceuticals. Because that is a
frequent subject of spam email, the message has been marked as spam
-- incorrectly, in this case. Joe has reported it as "not-spam", and
this is an example of the report, shortened (the "[...etc...]" part)
for presentation here.
Note that the message is DKIM-signed [I-D.ietf-dkim-rfc4871bis], a
good security practice as suggested in RFC 5965 section 8.2
[RFC5965]. [[anchor3: RFC Editor: please replace the DKIM citation
with a reference to RFC 6376, once it's published.]]
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; s=abuse; d=example.com;
c=simple/simple; q=dns/txt; i=abusedesk@example.com;
h=From:Date:Subject:To:Message-ID:MIME-Version:Content-Type;
bh=iF4dMNYs/KepE0HuwfukJCDyjkduUzZFiaHqO9DMIPU=;
b=e+BF8DCHFGqCp7/pExleNz7pVaLEoT+uWj/8H9DoZpxFI1vNnCTDu14w5v
ze4mqJkldudVI0JspsYHTYeomhPklCV4F95GfwpM5W+ziUOv7AySTfygPW
EerczqZwAK88//oaYCFXq3XV9T/z+zlLp3rrirKGmCMCPPcbdSGv/Eg=
From: <abusedesk@example.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2005 17:40:36 EDT
Subject: FW: Discount on pharmaceuticals
To: <abuse@example.net>
Message-ID: <20030712040037.46341.5F8J@example.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/report; report-type=feedback-report;
boundary="part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary"
--part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
This is an email abuse report for an email message received
from IP 192.0.2.1 on Thu, 8 Mar 2005 14:00:00 EDT.
For more information about this format please see
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5965
Comment: I sell pharmaceuticals, so this is not spam for me.
--part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary
Content-Type: message/feedback-report
Feedback-Type: not-spam
User-Agent: SomeGenerator/1.0
Version: 1
--part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary
Content-Type: message/rfc822
Content-Disposition: inline
Received: from mailserver.example.net
(mailserver.example.net [192.0.2.1])
by example.com with ESMTP id M63d4137594e46;
Thu, 08 Mar 2005 14:00:00 -0400
From: <someone@example.net>
To: <Undisclosed Recipients>
Subject: Discount on pharmaceuticals
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain
Message-ID: 8787KJKJ3K4J3K4J3K4J3.mail@example.net
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 12:31:03 -0500
Hi, Joe. I got a lead on a source for discounts on
pharmaceuticals, and I thought you might be interested.
[...etc...]
--part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary--
Example 1: Not-spam report
4. Security Considerations
All of the Security Considerations from the Email Feedback Reports
specification [RFC5965] are inherited here. In addition, the Email
Feedback Reports Applicability Statement [I-D.ietf-marf-as] contains
important information about trust relationships and other security-
and integrity-related aspects of accepting abuse feedback.
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In particular, not-spam reports will likely be used in an attack on a
filtering system, reporting true spam as "not-spam". Even in absence
of malice, some not-spam reports might be made in error, or will only
apply to the user sending the report. Operators need to be careful
in trusting such reports, beyond their applicability to the specific
user in question.
5. IANA Considerations
Registration is requested for the newly defined feedback type name:
"not-spam", according to the instructions in section 7.3 of the base
specification [RFC5965].
Please add the following to the "Feedback Report Type Values"
registry:
Feedback Type Name: not-spam
Description: Indicates that a message is not spam. This may be used
to correct a message that was incorrectly tagged or categorized
as spam.
Published in: this document
Status: current
6. Acknowledgements
The authors would like thank Murray S. Kucherawy and Bert
Greevenbosch for their discussion and review, and J.D. Falk for
suggesting some explanatory text.
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC5965] Shafranovich, Y., Levine, J., and M. Kucherawy, "An
Extensible Format for Email Feedback Reports", RFC 5965,
August 2010.
7.2. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-dkim-rfc4871bis]
Crocker, D., Hansen, T., and M. Kucherawy, "DomainKeys
Identified Mail (DKIM) Signatures",
draft-ietf-dkim-rfc4871bis-15 (work in progress),
July 2011.
[I-D.ietf-marf-as]
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Falk, J., "Creation and Use of Email Feedback Reports: An
Applicability Statement for the Abuse Reporting Format
(ARF)", draft-ietf-marf-as-00 (work in progress),
September 2011.
[OMA-SpamRep-RD]
Open Mobile Alliance, "Mobile Spam Reporting
Requirements", OMA-RD-SpamRep-V1_0 20101123-C,
November 2010.
Authors' Addresses
Kepeng Li
Huawei Technologies
Huawei Base, Bantian, Longgang District
Shenzhen, Guangdong 518129
P. R. China
Phone: +86-755-28974289
Email: likepeng@huawei.com
Barry Leiba
Huawei Technologies
Phone: +1 646 827 0648
Email: barryleiba@computer.org
URI: http://internetmessagingtechnology.org/
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