You must not run an "open mail relay", that is a machine which accepts mail from unauthorised or unknown senders and forwards it onward to a destination outside of basis, then it must record this mail passing through your system by means of an appropriate "Received:" line.
Please note that users of "Wingate" should take special note that this software is capable of providing a wide range of relaying services. Default configurations can lead to unauthorised use, so that special care must be taken to configure it to prevent such use. More information is currently available at:
www.cert.org/vul_notes/VN-98.03.WinGate.html
- As an exception to the ban or relying, you may run an "anonymous" relay service provided that you monitor it in such a way as to detect unauthorised or excessive use. However, you may not relay traffic from such an anonymous system via FBC’s servers, i.e.: you can only pass email from such a system to FBC where this is the correct destination for final delivery.
EMAIL
There are many forms of email abuse. This appendix discusses the more common forms in an informal manner, but is by no means an exhaustive list.
It is usual to describe "abuse" as being abuse of Internet facilities, rather than vulgar abuse sent via the Internet. To qualify as "abuse", an act must significantly interfere with the use of the network by an individual or group of individuals in some specific way, for example by consuming resources or wasting others time. The term "abuse" also includes activities that are illegal or dishonest.
Setting generalities aside, due to the practical problems caused by "spamming" FBC Internet wishes to make it clear that it considers the sending of Bulk unsolicited email, of any kind to be unacceptable behaviour. FBC Internet will always act when such behaviour is brought to its notice. Education, in the form of an email warning, can be the most appropriate response to a first offence, since customers can be unaware of contemporary standards. However, it is FBC Internet’s policy to terminate the accounts of any customer who continues to send bulk unsolicited email.
Chain letters "make money fast" and other ponzi pyramid-selling schemes
these articles are similar to paper versions, where you add your name at the end of a list and send the message to lots of your friends. The person at the head of the list is typically sent some small amount of money and hopes to become rich. Simple mathematics shows why they do not work in theory, and a little though about human nature will show you why they do not work in practice either. These schemes, even where they offer no financial or material reward are unacceptable abuse. They waste resources for Internet service providers and for the users who download them. If they do involve money they are also illegal in many countries despite common claims to the contrary within their text.
Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE)
Unsolicited Commercial Email is advertising material sent and received by email without the recipient either requesting such information or otherwise explicitly expressing an interest in the material advertised. Since many Internet users use a dial-up connection and pay for their online time, it costs them money to receive email. Receipt of unsolicited commercial advertising therefore costs them money and is often therefore unwelcome. It should be noted that a user has not expressed an interest by the mere act of posting a news article in any particular newsgroup, or by visiting a web site, unless of course they have made a specific request for information to be emailed to them.
Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE)
UBE is similar to the above UCE but is not attempting to sell anything.
Forged Headers and/or Addresses.
Forging headers or messages means sending email such that its origin appears to be another user or machine, or a non-existent machine. It is also forgery to arrange for any replies to the email to be sent to some other user or machine.
However, in either case, if the other user or the administrators of the other machine have granted prior permission to you, then there is no problem, and of course "null" reverse paths can be used as defined in the relevant email standards.
Mail Bombing.
Mail bombing is the sending of multiple emails, or one large email, with the sole intent of annoying and/or seeking revenge on a fellow Internet user. It is wasteful of shared Internet resource as well as serving no value to the recipient.
Due to the time taken to download it, sending a long email to sites without prior agreement can amount to denial of service, or denial of access to email at the receiving site. Note that adding binary attachments to email may increase its size considerably. If prior arrangement has not been made, the email may be extremely unwelcome.
Denial of Service Attacks.
Denial of Service is any activity designed to prevent a specific host on the Internet making full and effective use of its facilities. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Mail bombing an address in such a way to make their Internet access impossible, difficult or costly.
- Opening an excessive number of email connections to the same host.
- Intentionally sending email designed to damage the receiver’s systems when interpreted; for example, sending malicious programs or viruses attached to an email.
Mailing List Subscriptions.
Mailing lists are schemes for distributing copies of the same email to many different people. It is not acceptable to subscribe anyone, other than a user on your own host, to any mailing list or similar service, unless their explicit permission has been given.
List owners are encouraged to confirm all subscription requests by requesting confirmation from the apparent subscriber before starting to send any list email. They must ensure that unsubscribe requests are handled efficiently. Good emailing list software is available that will automate both these processes.
Many reports of unsolicited bulk email turn out to be from people who were unaware that they had joined a mailing list. It is not acceptable to subscribe people to a list merely because they have visited your web site or used one of your products; the person must make an explicit request to be listed.
However, some reports occur because people have genuinely forgotten that they had made such a request. If you run a mailing list you are strongly advised to keep copies of administrative request (web logs, or emails including headers) so that you may demonstrate that subscription requests were genuine.
Illegal content.
Various Acts of Parliament make it illegal to possess or transmit certain material on a public telecommunications network, such as the telephone system. It is not acceptable to send such material by email.
Breach of Copyright or Intellectual Property.
If you send copyright material or other intellectual property via email you must have permission to do so from the owner of that intellectual property.
Forged Headers
There are several types of unacceptable behaviour involving the forgery of article headers or article addresses.
It is abuse to post articles with headers that would mislead recipients into believing that some other system or user had created the articles. FBC Internet’s systems will add header lines to try and foil such forgery, but articles will still be treated as abuse even if FBC Internet actions make the attempted forgery apparent.
It is abuse to post articles with headers which would cause responses to these articles, solicited or otherwise, to be delivered to unwilling third parties, or to inappropriate or unreasonable newsgroups. In particular, it is abuse to arrange for email replies to be delivered to an email address that you do not have permission to use.
Illegal content
some material is illegal to possess or is made illegal to transmit by various Acts of Parliament dealing with material sent over a public telecommunications network such as the telephone system that FBC uses to provide its services. It is abuse to post-illegal material if you post copyright material or other intellectual property you must have permission to do so. In particular it can be illegal to publish ‘hacks’ or ‘cracks’ of software products.
Objectionable content
FBC Internet you may not publish material that is prohibited under local obscenity or indecency laws. For example, it is a criminal offence to even posses child pornography in the U.K. and other content may give rise to civil actions. FBC Internet does not condone the presence of this type of content anywhere on the Internet.
CUSTOMER WEBPAGES
This section is applicable to all web-hosting services provided by FBC Web Design.
There are some further Appendices applicable to particular services below.
You are responsible in all respects for the content of your web site and must ensure that no applicable law is violated.
You must obtain any necessary legal permission for any works that your web-site may include.
You will be held responsible for and accept responsibility for any confidential, secret or other proprietary material available via your web site.
FBC reserves the right to remove any material from a web site at our sole discretion, without prior notice and without explanation.
A web site may not be used to offer, advertise or distribute any of the following types of material:
- Software for sending ‘spam’ (bulk emails, excessive news postings, etc.);
- Illegal material
- Lists of email addresses, except where all the owners of the addresses have given you explicit permission;
- Any collection of personal data other than in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1984 and 1998
You must comply with the Data Protection Acts 1984 and 1998and any amendments or re-enactment’s of them) regarding all information received, stored or communicated through the use of your web site.
If your web site contains material that may cause general offence, a clearly readable warning page must be shown before any such offensive material is displayed.
To avoid doubt, this means that your top-level web page (usually index.htm or index.html) must not contain any adult material or other material that may generally offend. Where part of a web site forms an independent area that is not linked to by a topmost page, it will be considered as a site in its own right when considering whether appropriate warnings are present. Warnings are also required where the material is referenced directly from a web site, with no intervening pages, or where the use of frames makes the material appear to be part of a web site.
All of the web pages on a web site are considered to be publicly visible and may be downloaded by any person, whether or not they are linked from any central contents or home page. However, specific mechanisms are available as part of some services to prevent unauthorised access. Pages protected in such a manner will not be considered to be public.
Web sites may not be advertised by you, or by another person, using techniques that would be classified as "abuse" if they were carried out from a FBC account including, but not limited to, bulk emailing an excessive news posting. Such action will be treated under the FBC UP as if it had been done from the FBC account.
Web sites must display a valid, up-to –date email contact address for the person responsible for the site. The use of the generic address of "webmaster" is acceptable for this purpose. This address must appear on the top-level page or be easily locatable from the top-level page.
WEBHOST SERVICE
The section above sets out guidance for the use of all web-hosting services. This section gives further guidance about the use of the "homepages" service.
The Web-host service is a web site hosting service provided as part of other services. Termination or suspension of that other service will automatically result in termination or suspension of the corresponding web-host service.
- Should the automated enforcement of any Condition of Use or Technical Restriction fail to operate for any reason, FBC reserves the right to remove files from your site to apply the requirement or to require you to immediately correct the situation.
- FBC will require sites that are considered to show excessive use to be modified or be moved to a different server.
- FBC reserves the right to make a charge for any assessment of suspended sites
- FBC reserves the right to vary the definition of ‘excessive use’ at their sole discretion at any time without prior notice
- Support from the helpdesk is only available for uploading, downloading and viewing pages. No support will be given for HTML authoring or page design.
- You will be responsible for retaining copies of your own data. FBC will not keep backups of your pages
- FBC accepts no responsibility for loss data; information in any form or other matters whatsoever that result from the use of this service.
- FBC shall not be held liable for any loss however occasioned as a result of the suspension, removal or unavailability.
