Should abuse mailboxes have quotas?

Thu Oct 27 16:55:07 UTC 2016

> On Oct 27, 2016, at 9:47 AM, Leo Bicknell <bicknell at ufp.org> wrote:
> 
> In a message written on Thu, Oct 27, 2016 at 08:03:11AM -0700, Stephen Satchell wrote:
>> For the last couple of weeks, every single abuse mail I've tried to send
>> to networks in a very short list of countries has bounced back with
>> "mailbox exceeds quota".  I take this to mean that there isn't someone
>> actively reading, acting on, and deleting e-mail from abuse@<whomever>.
> 
> Are there any ISP's left that read and respond to abuse@ in a timely
> fashion?  I haven't seen one in at least a decade.  Maybe I e-mail the
> wrong ones.

Lots. There are also quite a lot that don't.

There are also many who you can't easily tell. Mail to abuse@ doesn't
bounce, their abuse issues aren't horrific relative to the size of their
customer base, so they're doing something right. And yet they have
persistently abusive customers who sit on their networks for years.
I've met the abuse staff at quite a few of those, and they're doing good work,
but it's only visible statistically, not on a per-incident level.

If mail to abuse@ doesn't bounce, give them the benefit
of the doubt until statistics say otherwise.

Cheers,
  Steve