Subject: [Asrg] 1a. Inventory of Problems - new spam channels

From: Andreas Saurwein <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 23:45:29 -0300

Recent discussion about the ability of modern games, raised the question 
about using online game networks for spamming.
Current game technology allows for tight integration of voice chat, text 
chat, server redirections, web links and more. They allow for full 
scripting, mod creation, custom content, etc.
I believe it is only a matter of a few month until we see serious spam in 
online games. Most games have, as far as I can see, no protection against 
this type of misuse.
Games like the Unreal series on the PC, Mac and Linux, allow for cheap 
server creation - even without the need to own the game (as if this would 
be a problem) - and hosting of custom content.
Given the number of people playing games online, this might in a year or 
two reach critical saturation.
It is probably time to start building up guidelines and BCPs for game 
developers too.

Andreas

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From: "Alan DeKok" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 14:54:59 -0500

> online games. Most games have, as far as I can see, no protection against 

  As a larger question, is the IETF designing protocols for the
Internet, or for IP networks?

  Online games may be viewed as private networks layered on top of the
Internet.  So are we interested in solving their spam problems, or
are they out of scope:

  Alan DeKok.

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From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 15:42:33 -0500

> Internet, or for IP networks?

 From a draft IETF mission statement 
(http://www.ietf.org/u/ietfchair/ietf-mission.html):

"The purpose of the IETF is to create high quality, relevant, and timely 
standards for the Internet."

and

"It is important that this is "For the Internet," and does not include 
everything that happens to use IP. IP is being used in a myriad of 
real-world applications, such as controlling street lights, but the IETF 
does not standardize those applications."

> Internet.  So are we interested in solving their spam problems, or

Now if game sites were using a standard protocol to talk to each other, 
or between players AND that protocol would be standardized on the 
Internet level and not proprietary to each company; then it would be in 
scope.

Yakov

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From: Andreas Saurwein <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:00:01 -0300

At 17/3/2004 17:42 Wednesday, Yakov wrote:
>>>I believe it is only a matter of a few month until we see serious spam 
>>>in online games. Most games have, as far as I can see, no protection 
>>>against this type of misuse.

Point taken.

>Now if game sites were using a standard protocol to talk to each other, or 
>between players AND that protocol would be standardized on the Internet 
>level and not proprietary to each company; then it would be in scope.

So, as some games (and other applications) use already VoIP, which is a 
"standard" I'd say, it might come into the scope of the IETF/ASRG sooner or 
later.

Not that we dont have enough to do to solve the current spam problems, but 
there are new, yet unexplored and unexploited possibilities to spam which 
might benefit from what we do here.

Andreas

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From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 02:51:29 -0500

>>> Andreas Saurwein <[email-masked]> wrote:
...
>> Now if game sites were using a standard protocol to talk to each 
>> other, or between players AND that protocol would be standardized on 
>> the Internet level and not proprietary to each company; then it would 
>> be in scope.
> 
> 
> "standard" I'd say, it might come into the scope of the IETF/ASRG sooner 
> or later.
> 

For the IETF that is the true, for the ASRG with a charter modification 
that could become true.

An interesting side point - someone on the MXCOMP list pointed out that 
he has been getting spam SIP calls.

> Not that we dont have enough to do to solve the current spam problems, 
> but there are new, yet unexplored and unexploited possibilities to spam 
> which might benefit from what we do here.

Agreed.

Yakov