[db-wg] country codes in the RIPE Database (was: ORGANISATION country code)

Hi George

Thanks for your comments. Of course global context is important in
these situations and I appreciate you raising this issue.

It says in the file:
https://ftp.ripe.net/pub/stats/ripencc/RIR-Statistics-Exchange-Format.txt

    3.3 Record format:
...
    cc        = ISO 3166 2-letter country code, and the enumerated
                variances of

                        {AP,EU,UK}

                These values are not defined in ISO 3166 but are widely used.

                The cc value identifies the country in which the
resource holder is
                legally based. However, it is not specified whether
this is the country
                where the IP addresses are used. This value can
therefore not be reliably
                used to map IP addresses to countries.

This used to be taken from the "country:" attribute in the resource
objects. However, the RIPE community agreed to a change to this which
is explained in this article:
https://labs.ripe.net/author/stefania_fokaeos/our-plan-to-update-country-codes/

So the values in the RIPE extended delegated stats file are no longer
linked to the "country:" attribute in resource objects. Now the change
referred to in this article has been fully implemented, I don't think
deprecating the "country:" attribute will have any impact at all on
the stats file.

cheers
denis
co-chair DB-WG


On Tue, 7 Mar 2023 at 23:29, George Michaelson <ggm at algebras.org> wrote:
>
> I suggest that this is not just a localized decision of the db-wg, but
> has global implications. You are discussing a field whose value is
> interpreted both directly from WHOIS and RDAP, and less directly from
> delegated files in the registry system across all the RIR. Your
> consumers are my consumers, and ARINs and LACNIC and AfriNICs. It is a
> global market of consumption.
>
> I don't necessarily disagree with you about the risks here, but I
> suggest that the decision to deprecate or alter behavior with this
> field is not something which a single RIR should undertake without a
> wider conversation.
>
> Obviously my statement has no "normative force". We're not discussing
> address policy, we're not discussing "global address policy" and in
> any case, RIR secretariat staff aren't "in charge" here, its something
> discussed inside your own process.
>
> I just think that there's a global context which is very important:
> Cohesion of this data across the "ecology" is a really big
> deliverable.
>
> cheers
>
> -George