[anti-abuse-wg] Manual vs automated reports

Dear Arnold

It seems there is some confusion over the wording used on the Abuse 
Finder web page. The input box is labelled "Resource key:". This is 
because, from a registration point of view, we see IP addresses and AS 
Numbers as "Internet resources". In the RIPE Database the primary "key" 
of an INET(6)NUM or AUT-NUM object is the IP address and the AS Number.

So the "Resource key:" box is where you enter the IP address that is 
originating the spam you receive. This tool will then return the abuse 
contacts for this IP address based on the 'best effort' heuristics 
currently available in the RIPE Database.

We will modify the text on the Abuse Finder page and change the help 
text for the '?' next to the input box to try to make this much clearer 
to users.

Thank you for the feedback and I hope this tool will be useful to you. 
With a clearer definition of how to store abuse contact details in the 
RIPE Database, as suggested by policy proposal 2011-06 for example, we 
would be able to make the heuristics behind the Abuse Finder tool much 
more accurate.

Regards,
Denis Walker
Business Analyst
RIPE NCC Database Group


On 26/07/2012 19:00, Arnold wrote:
> On 26/07/2012 2:01 AM, Denis Walker wrote:
>> Dear Arnold
>>
>> From the RIPE NCC website you can find an Abuse Finder tool
>> http://apps.db.ripe.net/search/abuse-finder.html
> Thank you, Denis
>
> I believe someone had pointed me to this URL before, but
> because I never used it, I had forgotten about it.
>
> As you have had other comments in the mean time regarding this
> URL, I won't belabor the point too much,
>
> When I, or anyone else, gets SPAM, all we have to go on is the IP
> address and the lookup URL does not even accept IP addresses,
> so it is not very useful for this purpose.
>
> It may be useful for whatever the facility was built for, but it is not
> for my purposes :-(
>
> I have used the RIPE DB look-up URL with some success, but it is
> tedious and requires a lot of manual intervention and searching
> and following trails.
>
>  From my perspective, the simplest way would be to simply put the
> abuse address in the place the Whois record provides, or possibly
> (and preferably for me) in the IANA database or else provide a
> service similar to Whois, for abuse only, with registration if
> absolutely necessary.
>
>> This is a first iteration of a user tool to help with finding abuse
>> contact information in the RIPE Database. It tries to find the abuse
>> contact(s) for an Internet resource on a 'best effort' basis.
> If it is a tool under development, I would not mind giving some feedback
> to the developers.
>  From waht I see and what others have also commented on, it does not
> look like
> it was developed with this purpose in mind.
>
> Arnold
>