[db-wg] Proposal to clean up historical "abuse-mailbox:" attributes

Hi Piotr


On 07/05/2015 22:24, Piotr Strzyzewski wrote:
> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 07:15:41PM +0200, denis wrote:
>
> Dear Denis and DB-WG Members
>
>> Tools provided by the RIPE NCC to find the abuse contact for a
>> resource (RIPEstat, Abuse Finder) only search for "abuse-c:" data.
> Just to clarify - I'm affraid that this looks like not being correct.
>
> First of all, this topic was discussed at RIPE69 and it was declared by
> RIPE NCC Staff Member that RIPEstat is still using more sophisticated
> way to look for abuse contact. Moreover, at the RIPEstat Abuse Contact
> Finder webpage (https://stat.ripe.net/specials/abuse) there is still
> present link to RIPE Labs article describing how this tool works
> (https://labs.ripe.net/Members/cteusche/finding-anti-abuse-contact-information-with-ripestat).

You are right, RIPEstat still uses an algorithm looking for email 
addresses that may not be correct, whereas the database Abuse Finder 
tool only uses the official abuse contact mechanism. I would disagree 
that this is 'more sophisticated'. It is a crude attempt to rate 
historical contact information that simply does not fit into a sliding 
scale of reliability. This algorithm has been criticised by members in 
the past who have received abuse reports to wrong email addresses or 
relating to resources they are not responsible for, simply because a 
complex web of references has changed over time. The problem is when 
someone uses a tool that has been provided to return an abuse contact 
and it gives you an email address, people will use that address. It does 
not matter how many stars it has, they will use it. Given a choice 
between a 1 star address or nothing...it is not a choice to the user.

> All above are of course just kind of hints. However, one can check this
> in practice, looking for Abuse Contact for 155.202.0.0/16 (being just an
> example here). Both whois client and Abuse Finder says that there is no
> abuse contact registered for 155.202.0.0/16, whereas RIPEstat reports
> abuse at produban.com with 4/5 quality rating as an Abuse Contact.
>
> This looks like those tools are based on different alghoritms and
> RIPEstat doesn't _only_ search for "abuse-c" data.

But now you have a dilemma. This example you referred to is a top level 
legacy object. They are not subject to the policy and do not have to set 
up "abuse-c:". In this example there is no referenced ORGANISATION 
object, no "abuse-c:", just a historical "abuse-mailbox:" in a 
referenced ROLE object. So it does not follow the accepted "abuse-c:" 
mechanism. As long as they are allowed to continue to do this they may 
never change anything and never set up an "abuse-c:" correctly.

If you decide not to do a cleanup because legacy space is not set up 
with "abuse-c:" and RIPEstat still tries to track vague references, then 
legacy space holders will not change anything and you will never be able 
to do a cleanup. It is a vicious circle. That means one of the main aims 
of the "abuse-c:" has failed - to have one single place to record abuse 
contact details and one single way of finding and reporting it. Apart 
from the few missing "abuse-c:" that Tim referred to, it is ONLY legacy 
space that does not have "abuse-c:" now.


>> A cleanup was proposed in the impact analysis for ripe-563
>> https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2011-06
>> " In order to clean up existing data, the RIPE NCC will notify the
>> users and convert "abuse-mailbox:" attributes into "remarks:" in any
>> object other than role objects."
>> As it is now a few years since this was discussed and agreed I think
>> it wise to propose the cleanup again and reaffirm this is the way to
>> go.
>> I therefore propose the RIPE NCC converts all "abuse-mailbox:"
>> attributes into "remarks:" attributes in PERSON, MNTNER, ORGANISATION
>> and IRT objects. Then deprecates this attribute from these object
>> types.
> Although I like this idea, I would prefer that RIPE NCC first address
> the problem of missing abuse-c attributes.

For the missing "abuse-c:" in RIPE allocated/assigned address space, 
this should be a simple process to fix. Notify the holders to remind 
them of their responsibilities, allow them a short period to set it up, 
then enforce it where necessary. This should not be a blocker on a cleanup.


>
>> I further propose that any "abuse-mailbox:" attribute in a ROLE
>> object, where the ROLE object is not referenced by any "abuse-c:"
>> attribute, and has not been referenced for at least 90 days, is also
>> converted into "remarks:". This will help to clean up historical
>> "abuse-mailbox:" attributes that existed in ROLE objects before
>> "abuse-c:" was introduced.
> Is this going to be one-time action or periodic, scheduled procedure?

It could be a one off to delete the historical data, or it could be 
built into the automated cleanup process to clean out redundant abuse 
contacts that are not referenced anywhere.

I suggest you go ahead with the cleanup despite all the above. The 
information currently in objects is not lost, but changed into "remarks: 
abuse-mailbox:". So if RIPEstat still wants to search for and report 
this information it is still there. But it makes a clear statement that 
the database only supports one method of recording abuse contact details.

cheers
Denis Walker
Independent Netizen

> Best regards,
> Piotr
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </ripe/mail/archives/db-wg/attachments/20150508/410e43cd/attachment.html>