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

On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 01:14:53AM +0200, denis wrote:

Dear Denis

> 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.

This is all true and we can look at this situation from different
perspectives. Suffice to say, that I was one of those moaning members
and the situation pushed me to put VR2736-RIPE into the database.

I don't want to start a debate about meanings of the words. Just to be
clear - the term "more sophisticated" was used only to note the fact
that it is something more than simple select from database.

>> 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.

I see this more like an opportunity and not a problem. From my point of
view, we do want to change _schema_. Just like we did with created:,
last-modified: and others. If we make a consensus about removing
abuse-mailbox: from certain objects this will not be a policy and will
not affect in any way ripe-639 (at least the way I understand it).

Moreover, the obligation mentioned in ripe-639: "the responsibility of
the resource holder to maintain accurate data in the registry in respect
of each resource identified" _could_ be interpreted in this context as
obligation to follow the community's wish to include abuse-c for legacy
resources.

> 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.

Don't be so pessimistic. ;-)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but RIPE NCC and RIPE community at large emerge
mostly from academic community. Those are smart guys and organizations
who/which are still here, support us and engage in the community. And
mostly they are the legacy resource holders. Did we talk with them and
asked them if they have any opinion about this idea of abuse-c? It is
not a secret that there is an mailing list gathering LRHs.

My organization holds legacy resource and I set up the abuse-c not only
because I was a member of the ACM-TF but mostly because this saves a lot
of work for me and my team. This was smart choice.

>>> 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.

This could be done parallel to the cleanup.

Piotr

-- 
gucio -> Piotr Strzyżewski
E-mail: Piotr.Strzyzewski at polsl.pl