[anti-abuse-wg] Attempting to provide some transparency to RIPE NCC abuse handling (was Notice: Fradulent RIPE ASNs)

Ronald,

On Monday, 2013-01-21 03:53:02 -0800, 
"Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg at tristatelogic.com> wrote:
> 
> In message <40A6A1EE-5F5B-46A3-ACFE-17F69F24EDB1 at steffann.nl>, 
> Sander Steffann <sander at steffann.nl> wrote:
> 
> >> Perhaps something more like a couple of checkboxes on the
> >> complaint =
> >form
> >> which say:
> >>
> >> [ ] I wish this complaint to be public.
> >> [ ] I wish my name to be included in the public report.
> >>
> >> This way we could have an opt-in public archive of all abuse
> >> reports that the RIPE NCC has received.
> >
> >Even better! Then we also have an input/output view on the RIPE NCC
> >fraud/complaint handling procedure.
> 
> Ummmm... no.
> 
> Apparently there is some confusion here.  Let me try to clear that up.
> 
> As I understand it, RIPE has contractual confidentiality commitments
> that are of such a nature that RIPE will _never_ say _anything_ about
> _any_ aspect of its handling of _any_ abuse report.  Period full stop.
> 
> For that reason, you will *not* ``get an input/output view'' on the
> process.  No person outside of RIPE staff will _ever_ see _any_
> ``output''.
> 
> That's the problem.
> 
> Putting an extra check box on a report form isn't going to change
> that.
> 
> I hope that we are clear on this now.

Actually we are not.

The RIPE NCC does have confidentiality clauses. This makes sense, as
they ask companies to provide proprietary information like their
business plans, which could be harmful to their operations if made
public.

However, I don't believe that this means that *all* interactions between
the RIPE NCC and the outside world is necessarily confidential. In
fact, we know that some things are not, because we can see dates when
addresses were allocated to specific LIR.

An even more important point is that the proposed check box on abuse
reports is NOT FOR THE LIRs. It is for the ABUSE REPORTER, and allows
them to declare their desire to have their complaints made public.

The idea is to create a system which allows continued confidentiality,
but makes public possible abuses. It prevents the RIPE NCC from getting
50 reports about an abusive LIR and ignoring them... which is what you
are concerned about, right?

If you think that improving transparency is a reasonable goal, but that
the check box idea is silly... excellent! Please propose an alternate
way to improve things!

If you think that the goal is unreasonable, because the RIPE NCC will
never, ever provide any transparency to its operations... then your
objection is of the sort, "it won't help". In that case, perhaps you
should at least let us try?

Cheers,

--
Shane