Ripe change to whois

At 01:01 PM 11/30/98 +0100, Joao Luis Silva Damas wrote:

Yes, that may be all correct - from a techno standpoint.  What I am
stressing is the human engineering aspect.  Up till now, thousands of hits
are sent to the whois.ripe.net every month to determine whether a domain
exists or not.  Users have been doing this for years.  Suddenly, the output
is different and they do not realize it.  I highly doubt that the human
engineering aspect was discussed or analyzed to any extent in the DB WG.  -Hank

>Dear all,
>
>The implementation of the referral mechanism is a new feature of the latest 
>release of the RIPE DB software.
>
>The design of this feature was specified some time ago by Carol Orange and 
>Wilfried Woeber (please see http://www.ripe.net/meetings/ripe/ripe-27/pres/rout
>e/referral/) and discussed in the RIPE db-wg mailing list (please see 
>http://www.ripe.net/mail-archives/db-wg/19970501-19970601/threads.html)
>
>According to this proposal the algorithm to be implemented is 
>
>(extracted from the proposal):
>***********
>Algorithm
>---------
>If the following query is submitted to the RIPE database:
>
>        whois [flags] xxx.yyy.zz
>
>the algorithm will work as follows:
>
>-------
>NAME="xxx.yyy.zz"
>
>until (NAME = "") {
>        If object with domain = NAME found,
>                If object contains referral (see "Referral" below)
>                        forward query (see "Forward" below)
>                Else
>                        return object
>        Else
>                Strip(NAME) (xxx.yyy.zz -> yyy.zz, etc)
>}
>
>
>NOTES
>-----
>1. We move up the tree here, and return the next level answer
>if present. If the query requests "tuintje.cwi.nl" (Piet, do you
>mind?), they currently get "No entries found ...". In the new
>mechanism, they would get:
>
>domain:      cwi.nl
>.
>.
>.
>mnt-by:      NL-DOMREG
>changed:     hostmaster at domain-registry.nl 19950227
>source:      RIPE
>
>Moreover, if the object for cwi.nl contains a referral, the query
>would be passed on to the specified server as explained below.
>
>2. The algorithm will be set off by any query which causes a search in
>the domain object index. This means any query with "-T domain", or
>any general query (no -T flag) with something that "looks like a
>domain".
>*************
>
>Currently and due to s small desynchronization within the RIPE NCC DB group 
>and the fact that the proposal was not clear about a particular point the 
>referred query is for the truncated object in the RIPE DB containing the refer 
>attribute. We want to modify this so that the query to the authoritative 
>server is for the user's initial query and not the result of the truncating 
>algorithm. This change will take place either today or tomorrow and a note 
>will be sent to the db-wg.
>
>As a side note I would like to stress that the RIPE Database is NOT the source 
>of authoritative data for domain objects (although we are happy to provide a 
>repository for TLD administrators).
>This is UNLIKE the internic whose business is to sell names.
>
>The RIPE NCC is therefore acting according to users directives that were 
>discussed and agreed on an open way.
>
>We are happy to hear any comments about this or any other issues regarding the 
>DB software and will keep working to suggest and provide users with 
>functionality that will help them the most.
>
>Please send any comments to the RIPE mailing lists.
>
>Best regards,
>Joao Damas
>RIPE DB Group manager
>RIPE NCC
>
>
> NCC local-ir list Moderator <lir-mod at ripe.net> writes:
> * 
> * I feel this is more appropriate to be discussed on the db-wg.
> * 
> * Mirjam Kuehne
> * RIPE NCC
> * 
> * ------- Forwarded Message
> * 
> * Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 19:21:13 +0200
> * To: <local-ir at ripe.net>
> * From: Hank Nussbacher <hank at ibm.net.il>
> * Subject: Ripe change to whois
> * 
> * I may have missed it, but a serious *bad* change has occured to the whois
> * interface. Previously, if I did a check on abcdef.co.il and abcdef did not
> * exist, whois would return an error message.  Now, whois returns the domain
> * and role records for the next upper level domain - i.e. co.il or .il.  Other
> * examples:  zzzz.ac.uk, zzzz.ac.at.  
> * 
> * How did I find out about this?  I received 3 phone calls already in the past
> * 24 hours from users in Israel stating that I personally am registered as
> * owner of hundreds of domains.  They state that being on the board of the
> * ISOC-IL which oversees the registration, I have violated the rules (limit of
> * 10 domains per person - other countries have similar restrictions).  I have
> * tried explaining to them that I am not the owner of these domains.  If it
> * was 1 user, I would assume they didn't read the entry correctly.  But the
> * fact that 3 totally different people have called me to ask whether I would
> * sell certain domain names to them, I can only conclude that the RIPE change
> * is not that successful.
> * People have been used to getting an error message from RIPE, similar to the
> * "No match" one gets from Internic.  When they now get a valid response, they
> * don't bother to check that the response is not for the domain they
> * requested.  There is no error message or error code.
> * 
> * This needs to be rectified (and changes discussed in the future - ignore if
> * it has been mentioned).
> * 
> * - -Hank Nussbacher
> * ISOC-IL board member
> * 
> * 
> * 
> * 
> * ------- End of Forwarded Message
> * 
> * 
> * 
>
>
>