Internet-Draft Elvis The Stiff Category: Informational GRACELAND.COM Expires April 1, 1997 November 1996 Elvis Spoofing Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as ``work in progress.'' To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the ``1id-abstracts.txt'' listing contained in the Internet- Drafts Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast). Abstract This document describes Elvis Spoofing - the abuse of the email account (especially by Usenet users and system admninistrators), and introduces the death penalty as a deterent. 1. Funny, ha, ha - NOT It appears to be "cool", "funny", "cute" (and many other equally pathetically similar phrases) to send email to someone with the Sender or From address set to . Each person who does this is, of course, acting entirely in a totally original manner and doing "something that nobody has ever thought of before", and are thinking "boy, won't this cause a laugh". This misplaced belief causes the recipient to respond with an equally witty reply to the email address. This situation, while usually harmless, is still annoying because of the volume of email sent to the "elvis@graceland.com" account. Elvis The Stiff [Page 1] Internet Draft Elvis Spoofing November 1996 Usenet users are the most problematic group. They have test newsgroups to do this in. "Gee, I can post test mail and if I do it from , no one will know it's me!". This would be fine in itself, but each test newsgroup sends an email message saying the posting has been successful. So what you say? Email is harmless. The majority of *.test postings that the account receives contain copyright materials sold by major software companies. In addition, posting large (megabytes) messages to *.test newsgroups creates hundreds and hundreds of 32k "posting verification" messages to be sent to the From address. Not only is posting copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner illegal, the quantity of email generated places a severe strain on the intermediate internet infrastructure, as well as the GRACELAND.COM mail server(s). 2. What to do about this 1. DO NOT FORGE THE EMAIL ADDRESS 2. DO NOT POST COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER 3. Deterrent As a deterrent to this dilemma, anyone caught forging the email address will be given a virtual death penalty. They may find their access to the GRACELAND.COM domain permanently terminated. They may also find fines and even jail time being imposed by a court of law. 4. Appeals There is no appeals process. 5. Security Considerations There are no known security considerations beyond those of the perpetrators host being found. 10. Author's Address Elvis The Stiff email: elvis@graceland.com [This document expires April 1, 1997] Elvis The Stiff [Page 2]