draft minutes, DB-WG meeting, RIPE-23, Jan.96, Amsterdam

Dear Kurt, Wilfried,

Thanks for producing the minutes. I have a minor note:

> Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet writes :
> 
>   - other changes include
>     . support for the BSD DB package
>     . better security for "network updates"

I think you mixed up (or I was not clear in my presentation) two points:

- We have now implemented a password controlled mechanism to overrule all
  security mechanisms (For adding maintainers and the like).
  We previously used a 'security by obscurity' mechanism. 
  
- 'Network updates' are now fully supported by the RIPE database software.
  Fully supported means here:
  
  If your IP address is in our access list.
  
  This mechanism is a very fast and efficient update mechanism and so far
  only intended for use by the registry itself. We could decide to make
  this mechanism available for everybody by adding a accesslist
  protection to the maintainer object but that will only work for objects
  that are protected by maintainers. We currently have the feeling that
  this mechanism is not providing enough data for our logfiles to
  track down problems... (Note: not all objects are protected by
  maintainers and can thus be updated by anybody *without* providing us 
  with some useful information in our log files)
  
  [ Personal opinion mode - ON ]
  
  We probably need another authentication mechanism to make this secure
  enough, the mechanism is just too powerful for the old authentication
  methods.
  
  [ Personal opinion mode - OFF]
  
Kind regards,
 
David K.