2018 JD Falk Award … a mailing list

It’s M3AAWG time. Even though we’re not there, I’m getting regular updates from friends and colleagues who are there. Yesterday, was the presentation of the 2018 JD Falk award. The award recognises “a particularly meritorious project undertaken by a dedicated individual or group reflecting the spirit of volunteerism and community building.” In this case, the award went to a group of people on the “BEC mailing list.”

BEC stands for Business Email Compromise (I had to look it up, now you don’t have to). According to  M3AAWG:

The Business Email Compromise List deals with a broad assortment of criminal activity and deceptive emails, often described as “Nigerian” schemes, that use phishing and fake social media activities to attract victims. By sharing information and expertise, they have blocked spoofed emails and malware; tracked real estate, romance, IRS, W2 and lottery schemes; and identified the money “mules” used to transfer illicit funds. BEC fraud accounts for more than $12 billion in losses globally and threatens users in 150 countries, according to the FBI’s IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center).

Congratulations to all the participants who work tirelessly to make the internet safer for businesses and consumers.

The group does have a video describing some of what they do.

I’m sure almost every field has these types of small, private, invite only lists that allow diverse groups of experts to collaborate and share information in a (mostly) secure environment. In many cases, this is good. Groups of smart, concerned people step up and collaborate to catch criminals and prevent bad behaviour. They do so because it’s the right thing to do. They’re not looking for praise or public adulation. Participation is often simply because this thing is a problem and they have the knowledge and ability to help solve the problem.

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M3AAWG in Philly This Week

Today marks the training day for M3AAWG 37 in Philly. With all the traveling and speaking I’ve been doing lately we’re not going to be there. So no tweeting from me about the conference.
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We’ve been attending various M3AAWG meetings since way early on – 2004? 2005? in San Diego. The organization has grown and matured and really come a long way since the early days. One of the challenges of M3AAWG is that it is a true working group. This isn’t like the various conferences I’ve been attending recently. I think there are two things that makes M3AAWG different from other conferences.
One of the most obvious things is the lack of a vendor floor. Sure, there are vendors and sponsors but vendors don’t bring in displays and have sales people stand around them to talk to folks. The conference does have demos and negotiations and meetings, but done differently than other events.
The other difference I’ve noticed is that M3AAWG is much more about participation. As the name says, this is a working group. Everyone is encouraged to get involved in things they’re interested in or that they think they can contribute to. Other conferences are a lot more about information being shared by speakers and panels. But during M3AAWG conferences, there are 2 mornings devoted to round tables.
The round tables are a true community effort, and probably deserve some discussion for people who’ve never been to the conference. Before the conference, members of the community submit ideas for things they think M3AAWG should discuss. These suggestions are reviewed by the board and leadership and ones that fall within M3AAWG’s purview are taken to the conference.
The first day of roundtables each topic is discussed in small groups. Volunteers facilitate a 20 – 30 minute discussion on the topic at hand with attendees. After time is called, attendees go to another topic and discuss that one. Part of what is discussed is not just the issue (say, how to get off a blacklist) but also what the final work product looks like. Is this a document for M3AAWG members? A panel at a future conference? A public document?
The second day is refinement of the roundtable topics and commitment from people to move the project forward. Champion is the person who is project managing this. Other roles depend on the work product. For presentation or panels, there is one set of roles. For documents there are roles as writers and editors and contributor.
M3AAWG has written and produced some useful resources and information over the years. Many of those resources are public, like best practice documents and metric reports. Other docs and reports are specifically for members.
The working group part of M3AAWG in one of its real strengths. Experts on all sides of the business of email get together to keep email useable and workable. Early on it there were a few barriers and some suspicion about various participant groups. But, as the industry as grown things have changed. Many folks have moved from ISPs to ESPs and back. There’s also a bigger place for companies that provide services to ESPs and ISPs, like us here at Word to the Wise. We’ve built bridges and technology and have been a positive force on the world.
 

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June 2015: the Month in Email

Happy July! We are back from another wonderful M3AAWG conference and enjoyed seeing many of you in Dublin. It’s always so great for us to connect with our friends, colleagues, and readers in person. I took a few notes on Michel van Eeten’s keynote on botnets, and congratulated our friend Rodney Joffe on winning the prestigious Mary Litynski Award.
In anti-spam news, June brought announcements of three ISP-initiated CAN-SPAM cases, as well as a significant fine leveled by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) against Porter Airlines. In other legal news, a UK case against Spamhaus has been settled, which continues the precedent we’ve observed that documenting a company’s practice of sending unsolicited email does not constitute libel.
In industry news, AOL started using Sender Score Certification, and Yahoo announced (and then implemented) a change to how they handle their Complaint Feedback Loop (CFL). Anyone have anything to report on how that’s working? We also noted that Google has discontinued the Google Apps for ISPs program, so we expect we might see some migration challenges along the way. I wrote a bit about some trends I’m seeing in how email programs are starting to use filtering technologies for email organization as well as fighting spam.
Steve, Josh and I all contributed some “best practices” posts this month on both technical issues and program management issues. Steve reminded us that what might seem like a universal celebration might not be a happy time for everyone, and marketers should consider more thoughtful strategies to respect that. I wrote a bit about privacy protection (and pointed to Al Iverson’s post on the topic), and Josh wrote about when senders should include a physical address, what PTR (or Reverse DNS) records are and how to use them, testing your opt-out process (do it regularly!), and advice on how to use images when many recipients view email with images blocked.

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MAAWG next week

I’ll be up in Toronto Tuesday and part of Wednesday for the M3AAWG meeting. If you’re there, say HI!

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