Re: Abuse address attribute in RIPE whois?

[Joerg Dorchain <]

On Thu, Aug 23, 2001 at 11:51:26AM +0100, Rob Woodward wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I think the point here was people and automated programs don't use these
> fields either, they look at the changed attribute which has an e-mail
> address in it, tech-c and admin-c don't have e-mails just a RIPE handle.

I got several abuse complaints to the address in the changed-line
recently. It seems to me that people heard something like "Ripe knows the
spammer" (article in some magazine?) and mail everything with an @ in it.

> We use a role object in most of our tech-c attributes and we create a
> new person object for our customers which we put into the admin-c.
> People seem to ignore these and the e-mails in the person and role
> objects, they also ignore the remarks or descriptions on the role object
> asking for abuse to be sent to our abuse address.

That is exactly the point.  Although I would not mind an abuse-c: field,
I don't think it is a solution. The problems is, as almost everywhere,
human ignorance and resistance to learn (I told one person several times
to use the abuse@ address, got an automated read acknowledgement, and he
continued using the address from the changed: line. Arrgh)

To me it seems that spreading the ripe-datase manual would help. Ripe
could have an marketing or PR department that give out the information in
a less exhausting format, albeit loosing technical details (which these
people would not read anyway, IMHO) Anyone volunteering for "Ripe
Database - Not Just for Fun"? ;-)

So to me the database itself is ok, it is education is the databse users
that is needed. There are many new users with no technical background who
cause problems with their misunderstanding of things (which will sooner
or later keep lawyers busy, when some people's money exceeds their
ignorance.)
These new users are obviously not reached by the current means of
information spreading. With a positive view, one could take this as a
challenge.

My 2c,

Joerg
Europe Online NOC