[db-wg] PERSON objects in the RIPE Database

a heretical view on whois:

[ by whois, i do not mean the irr.  the ripe db confounds the two. ]

back in the day, when some anomalous behavior hit one of my servers or
services, i used whois (yes, i still have a paper copy of the last
edition of the manager's handbook somewhere) and wrote or called to warn
that their system appeared to be compromised.  folk were responsive and
appreciative.

as the malicious incident volume grew, this did not scale along many
dimensions.  folk found the inbound report load excessive and of poor
quality.  reporters were having so many incidents that reporting them
was not worth the time.

extrapolate to today.  i no longer care about whois, either for domains
or addresses.  i also do not have a telephone book.  so feel free to
take it away.

randy