[anti-abuse-wg] Notice: Fradulent RIPE ASNs

In message <20130122104548.4406e7d9 at shane-desktop>, 
Shane Kerr <shane at time-travellers.org> wrote:

>No, I'm not worried about your confidentiality, however I was trying to
>think of potential misuse of the system.
>
>For example, I might falsely report abuse by a competitor, in order to
>tarnish their name, and cost them time & money dealing with the report.
>Because of this, it is in people's interest to have the identity of the
>abuse reporter public to avoid this issue.

We agree, and you make an excellent point.

Here is this country we have (at least) two entirely notorious sagas,
both part of our national collective consciousness, that eternally
remind us of how accusations by unnamed accusers (or little children)
can lead to tragic consequences.  One is the Salem Witch Trials.  The
other is the political era of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Personally, I've been on the Internet for roughly 29 years now, and
unlike many others, I've always held the belief that if I
want to say anything that might be in the least controversial, that
I should have the guts to do so using my own name and my own e-mail
address, and that I should  _not_ hide behind an alias, a handle, a
pseudonym, or a throw-away e-mail address.  And I have always stuck
to that rule.

I just believe that men should take responsibility for their words,
as well as for their actions.  Call me old-fashioned, anachronistic,
or antiquated.  I don't care.  This is one of my own personal bedrock
principals.

>HOWEVER, there is also a place for anonymous abuse reporting. People
>may notice something "funny", but not really be interested in spending
>a lot of their own effort resolving it. Consider it like an anonymous
>tip-line that some police departments set up.

See above, re The Salem Witch Trials and/or Sen. Joe McCarthy.

In this country we have also experienced more recent but similar traumas
revolving around theripist-induced "recoved memories" of children being
used to indict many totally innocent caregivers on charges of child abuse
(including sexual abuse).

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/innocence/

All, things considered, I personally am not in favor of the whole notion
of anonymously lodged complaints.  But that's just my personal opinion,
and I understand that others do not share this view.

>> You have a solution in search of a problem.
>
>Well, the main point of the proposal is to have a public archive of
>abuse reports to the RIPE NCC

That would be good.

However that issue is unrelated to, and orthogonal to the question of
whether issue reporters should or should not be encouraged or allowed
to remain anonymous.

>The problem that I was
>attempting to solve is the utter lack of transparency in abuse handling.

Please proceed.  You have my complete support.

Getting all the reports online would certainly be a Good Thing.


Regards,
rfg