Creation and Use of Email Feedback Reports: An Applicability Statement for the Abuse Reporting Format (ARF)
RFC 6650

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                           J. Falk
Request for Comments: 6650                                   Return Path
Updates: 5965                                          M. Kucherawy, Ed.
Category: Standards Track                                      Cloudmark
ISSN: 2070-1721                                                June 2012

              Creation and Use of Email Feedback Reports:
    An Applicability Statement for the Abuse Reporting Format (ARF)

Abstract

   RFC 5965 defines an extensible, machine-readable format intended for
   mail operators to report feedback about received email to other
   parties.  This applicability statement describes common methods for
   utilizing this format for reporting both abuse and authentication
   failure events.  Mailbox Providers of any size, mail-sending
   entities, and end users can use these methods as a basis to create
   procedures that best suit them.  Some related optional mechanisms are
   also discussed.

Status of This Memo

   This is an Internet Standards Track document.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Further information on
   Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6650.

Falk & Kucherawy             Standards Track                    [Page 1]
RFC 6650                         ARF AS                        June 2012

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................3
   2. Definitions .....................................................4
   3. Solicited and Unsolicited Reports ...............................4
   4. Generating and Handling Solicited Abuse Reports .................4
      4.1. General Considerations for Feedback Providers ..............4
      4.2. Where to Send Reports ......................................5
      4.3. What to Put in Reports .....................................5
      4.4. General Considerations for Feedback Consumers ..............5
      4.5. What to Expect .............................................6
      4.6. What to Do with Reports ....................................6
   5. Generating and Handling Unsolicited Abuse Reports ...............6
      5.1. General Considerations .....................................6
      5.2. When to Generate Reports ...................................7
      5.3. Where to Send Reports ......................................7
      5.4. What to Put in Reports .....................................8
      5.5. What to Do with Reports ....................................9
   6. Generating Automatic Authentication Failure Reports ............10
   7. Security Considerations ........................................11
      7.1. Security Considerations in Other Documents ................11
      7.2. Forgeries .................................................11
      7.3. Amplification Attacks .....................................11
      7.4. Automatic Generation ......................................11
      7.5. Reporting Multiple Incidents ..............................12
   8. Acknowledgements ...............................................13
   9. References .....................................................13
      9.1. Normative References ......................................13
      9.2. Informative References ....................................14

Falk & Kucherawy             Standards Track                    [Page 2]
RFC 6650                         ARF AS                        June 2012

1.  Introduction

   The Abuse Reporting Format (ARF) was initially developed for two very
   specific use cases.  Initially, it was intended to be used for
   reporting feedback between large email operators, or from large email
   operators to end user network access operators, any of whom could be
   presumed to have automated abuse-handling systems.  Secondarily, it
   is used by those same large mail operators to send those same reports