Re: [anti-spam-wg@localhost] Abuse contacts in RIPE database and whois

[Markus Stumpf <]

On Thu, Sep 23, 2004 at 12:27:27PM +0100, Rodney Tillotson wrote:
> Because that's one of the principal places people and tools look
> for it.

Yeah, taking email addresses from changed: records. Brilliant idea.
I have stated more than once that it would be a great idea to NOT
output changed: records per default for years and I have always got
mostly positive feedback, and now do a whois lookup and see what it
returns ...

And they look in the whois database because no one looks for RP records
because no one seems to know about, but that doesn't mean that changing
the RIPE whois database is the way to go and solves the problems at all
or solves them in an easier way.

> I have never heard of any tool that looks there for abuse contact
> information.

And I have never heard of a tool that uses the to be created abuse contact
fields in the RIPE database.
Great argument, isn't it.

> Improving the accessibility of whois for this purpose
> will have immediate effect;

Yet another modification to a database whose format is different for
every RIR as of now and that has referrals that don't work.
And then you have to talk to the database WG to get it added and they
have to change the database and the software and the templates.
And all abuse reporting software has to be modified and you have to
spread the word about the new fields and everyone has to fill the
records in. Btw. there was a discussion about the exactly same subject
nearly exactly one year ago. Did something happen?
Where is the "immediate effect" you are talking about?
Adding RP records to DNS is as easy as "vi" and "ndc reload" (may vary
for other environments and DNS servers). It is a matter of 2 minutes
even now! Now that's what I'd call "immediate".

> a project to further overload and
> populate the DNS using RP or a more specific new RR may or may not
> warrant long-term study in the Anti-spam or DNS WGs but clearly it
> can't be taken to the Database WG.

Overload?
It is not that we need some months of discussion and a rewrite of DNS
server software to add a new record type or abuse a TXT record for that.
It is there since 1990 and it is backup'd by a RFC.
But maybe we should remove all the PTR records, too, to not "overload"
the DNS system, and maybe we should remove 90% of all that useless/unused
zones to not overload the DNS system.
If the information is stored in DNS *everyone* who has access to the
reverse zone can add RP information in an easy, timely and accurate way
and doesn't have to depend on his LIR/IP space provider to update the
information. I use the whois databases frequently and sorry to say that
but a lot of information therein is simply crap.

Using DNS might or might not change that but at least it gives the
people that "own" delegated reverse space the possibility to keep the
information uptodate and it is a scheme that can commonly be used
throughout the Internet by everyone and queried with a simple standardised
interface.

	\Maex

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