[anti-abuse-wg] New Abuse Information on RIPE NCC Website

In message <51CAE218.8000607 at CC.UniVie.ac.at>, 
Woeber at CC.UniVie.ac.at wrote:

>Erik Bais wrote:
>[...]
>> For those that want to read up on what actually happened on that specific
>> incident in Latvia (July/August 2010), have a read on the following open
>> letter from CERT.lv
>> 
>> https://cert.lv/uploads/uploads/OpenLetter.pdf 
>
>And this actually wasn't the only or the first "incident" with Spamhaus.
>They also tried similer *piep*^Wbullying against NIC.at before.
>
>Which actually has discredited Spamhaus in my personal opinion for sure,
>for knowingly disregarding local law, but that's slightly OT here - but
>maybe not...

I don't think that it is, because _that_ (ignoring local law... to a certain
extent[1]) is pretty much exactly what I, at least, have been advocating here.

When it comes to physical territory -- the kind that politicians draw
lines around on maps -- sovereign nations should be just that, sovereign.
But as we all know, the Internet pretty much ignores all such borders.
It is a realm unto itself, with its own needs for security and the common
good.

None of this is to say that I am in any way defending what Spamhaus either
did or did not do in either of these cases (Latvia or Austria).  Indeed,
in the case of the latter I cannot, because I don't even have any idea
about what happened, what they (Spamhaus) did about it, or why.  For all
I know, in that case they actually may have been either perfectly justified
or else perfectly indefensible.


Regards,
rfg


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Footnote:

[1] I cannot envision any cases in which local laws should be *weakened*
by their counterparts in ``cyberspace'' (to coin a phrase :-).  I can
however easily imagine many many scenarios where local laws allow action
`X' but where action `X' is quite clearly and obviously detrimental to
the ongoing stability, security, or operability of the Internet.  In such
cases, and _only_ within the realm of the Internet, yes, local laws should
be ``ignored'' if you will.

Then again, now that we know that China is hacking the USA... and most
probably everybody else... and now that we know that the USA is hacking
China... and probably everybody else... maybe it is already to late to do
anything about anything that even a large percentage of us here might
classify as "abusive".  Maybe the cat is already out of the barn door.