news.admin.net-abuse.sightings is a forum for reports of sightings of net abuse. It is a robomoderated forum, allowing only properly formatted posts. Followups are required to be set strictly out of the group and into the appropriate group in the news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy.

News.admin.net-abuse.sightings is moderated by a robot moderator, run by a team of operators. The robot will automatically approve and post messages according to the following criteria:

  1. The message is formatted for 78 or fewer characters per line, and is easily human readable.

  2. The message follows a publicized template specified by the operator of the robot moderator. For example, the following format -may- be the standard for a Usenet abuse sighting:

     (headers)
 Subject: [usenet] (Standard Subject)
 Followup-to: news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
 From: (valid address) -or- Reply-to: (valid address)
 (other standard headers)

 (body)
 Abuse-spotted-in: (first group spotted)
 Abuse-Subject: (subject from abuse)
 Type-of-abuse: (EMP, ECP, binary, forgery, etc.  No set rules here)
 Description: (description and/or comments)
 -
 (Full headers of the abuse)
 (Full body of the abuse)

Messages may be automatically reformatted by the robot moderator for archival and standardization purposes, using procedures established by the operator of the robot moderator. For example, the following changes may be made, if deemed appropriate:

  1. Only the first fifteen lines of the body of the abuse may be posted; the rest would be archived, but not posted.
  2. The abuse may be reformatted to fit into 78 columns.
  3. If the text of the abuse would cause technical problems with some newsreaders, the problem text may be replaced with X's; if the abuse would cause problems with most newsreaders, the article may not be posted at all.
  4. Several headers may be added at the discretion of the operator of the robot moderator, such as the following:
    • X-Apparently-Complain-To: <postmaster@apparent.site.of.abuse>
    • X-Archive-Number: (a unique number)
    • X-Archives: (URL of site containing group archives)

Messages that do not meet these criteria will be sent back to the sender with a copy of this charter and a listing of the published templates, though at most one copy of this information will be sent out per week. Forged approvals will be automatically cancelled. Changes to the robot moderator can only be enacted by a majority vote of the then-current operators; similarly, operators can be added or removed by a majority vote of the then-current operators.

The news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy is for discussion of abuse of Usenet and/or the Internet; it is not for discussion of abuse of groups or individuals on such networks, such as flames, personal attacks, or off- topic messages.

Binaries are specifically prohibited from all groups in the news.admin.* hierarchy, except as examples of other abuse. All messages removed by unauthorized cancels in the hierarchy will be automatically reposted by Dave the Resurrector or a similar program, at the discretion of the group moderator or, for the unmoderated groups, the operator of the resurrector program. Spams, gateway spews, and other attacks on the system itself will be removed as appropriate, following standard Usenet guidelines.

MODERATOR INFO: news.admin.net-abuse.sightings

  • Moderator: Tim Skirvin
  • Administrative contact address: nanas-req@killfile.org
  • Article submission address: nanas@killfile.org