While the question (metrics for operators, backbone-to-retail, spam) is current in the asrg list, the question is posed by (informally) by the (outgoing) secretary of the ICANN Registrar's Constituency to a listserv in the AOL playpen. The question is not current in the Registrar's Constituency, not is it likely to be, IMHO. There are several ways nanog'ers can take it, back to the AOL listserv, or over the fence to the irtf/asrg playpen, or yawn. There is one modality of spam that interests me technically, one that Bill touched on in his note in the "rr style scanning" thread, and Sean and others have touched on in the "use trojans" thread. Buffering up hosts (acquired via technical means), and expending hosts (sending until some terminal condition occurs) at a rate approximating the rate of buffer-fill. Anyone else interested drop me a line. Better still would be the peer reviewed paper in the open literature that answers all the questions I've thought of, and haven't thought of. Eric