[anti-abuse-wg] whois access

 >Not every spammer can harvest all addresses daily ;o)

I have been doing this for years with domain whois.  I am listed in over 
1000 domains.  My experience (without taking detailed measurements) is 
that a small trickle of spam comes within a few hours (which is why I 
know IP restrictions don't work).  However, it does not build up to any 
significant amount for a couple months.  I suspect the RIPE database is 
not as desirable as .com whois so i suspect changing the address every 
few months will be more than sufficient.  However, anyone can do this on 
your own and you don't need RIPE to do it for you as long as you can set 
up e-mail forwarding.

What should have been is that honeypot addresses should have been set up 
to measure the effectiveness of any anti-spam methods used.  has this 
been done in the case of RIPE?  How did RIPE come up with this new 1,000 
queries per day limit?  Did someone just pick a number or was it tested 
with data?  Are there ongoing efforts to test the effectiveness of these 
and any other tools?

The other problem I see is that the operation of the whois databases are 
part of the requirements to be an RIR.  The RIR's all agreed in the MOU 
that policies relating to the requirements to be an RIR be submitted to 
the consensus process.  It is supposed to go to the "Address Council" of 
the "Address Supporting Organization (ASO)."  Instead we have RIR's 
skipping the consensus process and establishing their own local policies.

Thank You