[db-wg] 2022-01 V2 Resource Holders Address

Before discusing the current proposal any further, I am eager to have denis
clarify two rather remarkable comments that he's already/previously made
here.  Each of these comments remain altogether troubling.  I've already
asked denis to either clarify or amend these comments, but so far he hasn't.

    https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/db-wg/2022-June/007473.html

Comment #1:

   denis> Some telecom companies enter hundreds of thousands of customer details
   denis> into the RIPE Database including personal names and addresses.
   
   rfg> Really?  Name two.
   
   This alleged "fact" (regarding certain as yet unnamed telecoms) is one basis
   that denis has used as a justification for the present proposal.  Thus, I do
   believe that it is reasonable to inquire if it is actually true or not.
   So far, denis has offered no evidence that it actually is.

Comment #2:

   rfg> So now, why don't you re-submit this proposal and instead propose
   rfg> that *all* mailing address information, including even the country
   rfg> name, be redacted from the data base for *all* members?
   
   denis> It will be optional.

   I have already and repeatedly expressed my deep and earnest concern that
   the present proposal will by no means be the end of these efforts to
   render the WHOIS data base less complete and thus less useful.  For
   his part, denis has suggested that I am being unduly pessimistic or
   unduly alarmist.

   The above comment would seem to put the lie to that assertion.  The real
   and true goal, as denis himself is accurately quoted (above) as saying
   is that *all* location information for *all* categories of members, both
   natural persons and others, will henceforth become "optional" right down
   to even the identification of the home country.

   I feel quite certain that cybercriminals throughout the RIPE region will
   be dancing in the streets (and making champagne toasts to denis) if in
   fact it becomes a mater of RIPE policy that even the identification of
   the countries where their shell companies are incorporated become
   "optional" disclosures vis a vis the public WHOIS.

   More to the point, it would seem that this fetish for secrecy and non-
   transparency has already metastasized beyond what was originally being
   sold to us as just a way to help the handful of natural persons in the RIPE
   region who are too dumb to help themselves, e.g. by renting a P.O. box.
   So I believe that I am right to ask:  What's next?  What else is going to
   be quitely disappeared from the data base, and from public view, before
   this obsession runs its full course?


Regards,
rfg