[anti-abuse-wg] personal data in the RIPE Database

Registered companies have in the past been LLCs or the local country equivalent and in some cases, using the id of random people paid a few euro to allow their name to appear in LLC paperwork, if I remember right.

The same thing is quite likely for “natural person” to be “some old drunk I met in a bar who handed over his ID to be used for registering ripe resources”

--srs
________________________________
From: anti-abuse-wg <anti-abuse-wg-bounces at ripe.net> on behalf of denis walker <ripedenis at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 7, 2022 12:19:43 AM
To: Richard Clayton <richard at highwayman.com>
Cc: anti-abuse-wg <anti-abuse-wg at ripe.net>
Subject: Re: [anti-abuse-wg] personal data in the RIPE Database

On Mon, 6 Jun 2022 at 19:27, Richard Clayton <richard at highwayman.com> wrote:
>
> In message <CAKvLzuGDaye7RTgCbS=Y29aDpNViTaZs+9Xpe72yo-
> jGZDA5xw at mail.gmail.com>, denis walker <ripedenis at gmail.com> writes
>
> >On Mon, 6 Jun 2022 at 17:57, Suresh Ramasubramanian <ops.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Always a useful thing to do if you want to block all resources held by a
> >single actor or set of actors.
> >
> >So are you saying that you DO use the ORGANISATION object address to
> >match resources held by different members at the same location? If so
> >there are technical ways to offer that functionality within the
> >database without exposing the full address of natural person members.
>
> you're about to suggest hashing ... that doesn't provide what is needed
> because it is far too fragile to be useful given that WHOIS entries are
> not canonicalised and also contain minor errors

I had something similar in mind.

>
> you can find countless examples of typos, old addresses etc within the
> RIPE data. For a contemporary example check for inconsistent use of
> Kiev/Kyiv for resources held by exactly the same person/organistion.

OK lets narrow it down a bit. The address of a registered business
will still be publicly available in the database. So if someone has
registered multiple businesses at the same address this data will
still be available, even with any spelling mistakes.

What we are talking about are the resource holders who are natural
persons. When these people apply to be a member I am sure the RIPE NCC
requires proof of identity and proof of address. (They will correct me
if I am wrong.) So unless a group of natural persons are all living at
the same address and all provide proof of that, then you are not going
to get this address correlation anyway. If a group of natural persons
are all operating from a common commercial address, not a personal
address, then the address will still be publicly available in the
database.

The only resource holder's addresses that will be restricted are for
natural persons who are operating from their home address. Those
addresses are likely to be unique in the database.

I will give a balanced argument and point out that there is a
downside. RIPE policy allows multiple LIRs. So a natural person
operating from their home address can become a Member and then set up
multiple LIR accounts. Each of these accounts will be linked to
separate ORGANISATION objects with the same address. Because it is a
natural person and their home address, that address will have
restricted access. Each of these LIRs can get separate, distinct
allocations and the address link between these allocations is lost
publicly. This can be fixed if we modify address policy, requiring the
RIPE NCC to publicly identify the link between multiple LIRs with the
same owner. Relying on the address as the main link between multiple
LIRs is not perfect anyway. A Member may be able to set up multiple
LIR accounts with different addresses. Having an official link would
be far more reliable.

The bottom line is that there are honest, law abiding people who are,
or would like to be, resource holders but are exposed to considerable
personal danger by making their name and address public. We must take
the personal privacy issue seriously. If this creates problems in
other areas we need to find solutions to those problems.

cheers
denis
proposal author




>
> --
> richard                                                   Richard Clayton
>
> Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
> Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin 11 Nov 1755
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