Inconsistent NIC handles

  Dear Janos!

>Theoretically the NIC handle is supposed to uniquely identify the person.

  More precisely: ... a uniquely assigned Handle is supposed to...

>The problem I noticed is that somebody (inadvertently) registered a person
>with an Internic-type NIC handle (i.e. without the "-RIPE" suffix) in the
>RIPE database. 

  This is a perfectly legal situation, as long as the person being
  described has a unique handle assigned already, probably from the
  InterNIC.

  Obtaining a unique handle from the RIPE-NCC (of the form xyz999-RIPE)
  and then registering the person object *without* the "-RIPE" suffix
  string is clearly an error.

  The overall scheme is that the InterNIC has in the past assigned, and
  continues to do so, handles of the form xyz999. Every other source of
  unique handles assignes strings of the form xyz999-suffix, the suffix
  being unique in itself. The string "-RIPE" is used for the RIPE Handles.

  Registries in the Asia/Pacific region are reported to use suffix strings
  derived from the ISO3166 country codes.

>The result is an inconsistency between the two databases
>(RIPE and Internic). One gets different answers, depending on whom one asks the
>question.

  Not necessarily so! The IneterNIC is expected to accept handles
  assigned by other regsitries interchangably when importing data
  (objects) from other sources. 

  Btw, has this been tried by anyone recently?

  Please feel free to ask more questions if this is still in the dark :-)
  
  Wilfried.

PS: If you could point out the affected objects we could possibly find
    out what went wrong or if there is really a flaw in the logistics...
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Wilfried Woeber                :  e-mail: Woeber at CC.UniVie.ac.at
  Computer Center - ACOnet       :  
  Vienna University              :  Tel: +43 1 4065822 355
  Universitaetsstrasse 7         :  Fax: +43 1 4065822 170
  A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe :  NIC: WW144
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------