RE: Abuse address attribute in RIPE whois?

["Gerard Ross" <]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-anti-spam-wg@localhost [
	    
	    

> Behalf Of Valentin Hilbig

<snip>
> We do not need DB support.  All we need are some well-defined well-known
> well-published and self-declaring tags within the descr:, remark: or
> likewise lines.


I'm afraid I would disagree with this.

I work for an RIR (APNIC), but in a communications capacity, not a technical
one.

The suggestion above is a reasonable solution in technical terms, but the
problem goes well beyond the technical sphere. Part of my job at APNIC is
answering the spam and hacking complaints that pour into our mailboxes
everyday.

From this experience, it is clear to me that the whois database is something
that was created for a technical audience, but which is now overwhlemingly
used by non-technical people. And they don't understand it.

In fact, even tech-c and admin-c are next to useless for most non-technical
people, because they have no idea what those words mean. Anyway, even if
they do look at those fields, they also see at the bottom of the object
"source:  APNIC". So in the minds of many Internet citizens, we are
obviously the spammer.

Before anyone says "documentation", I can also add that we have good
standard replies and FAQs, but stubborn people do not want to go elsewhere
to read something. Anyway, they don't want to trust what we tell them
because they think we are spammers. ;-)

In short, my basic point is that it is no longer good enough to consider the
whois database as a resource for the technical community. It now has a much
broader communication role. Changing the whois database in order to improve
the efficiency of abuse reporting will not work unless the changes affect
its fundamental user-friendliness.

Cheers
- Gerard Ross