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

[Sabri Berisha <]

On Thu, Sep 23, 2004 at 05:55:40PM +0200, Markus Stumpf wrote:

'lo,

> Yeah, taking email addresses from changed: records. Brilliant idea.

Bad idea. The people who develop these tools are ignorant.

> 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 ...

Personally, I would love to change the whole concept. Make a public and
a private database. The public database has abuse-c and tech-c only. The
private database can have all other information and should only be
accessed by LIR-contacts (or sub-contacts, at least registered users).

> 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.

There are a few people who use them. I used them while I was still a
student, but stopped because nobody else use them :)

> 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.

But we do have an extra argument to slap the "developers" and users of
these tools.
 
> Yet another modification to a database whose format is different for
> every RIR as of now and that has referrals that don't work.

This is another discussion.

> 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".

I humbly disagree. The past few years I worked for a number of ISP's
and I can assure you that each ISP has its own implementation of SQL't
DNS.

I do sympathise with your arguments, but we have to face the fact that
most ordinary users depend on their tools. And the coders of these tools
are appearantly to clueless to describe so we have no other choice than
to make it simple for them to access, or the opposite.

-- 
Sabri Berisha, SAB666-RIPE              - I route, therefore you are
http://www.cluecentral.net              - http://www.virt-ix.net