[ncc-services-wg] RIPE50 - NCC Services WG Draft Minutes

Dear All,

Please see draft minutes from the NCC Services Working Group at RIPE  
50.  Please send any questions, comments or clarifications to Kurtis,  
myself or this
mailing list.

regards,

Bijal
----

RIPE NCC Services Working Group Agenda

Date:     Thursday, 5 May 2005
Time:     16:00 - 17:00
Room:     Plenary Room

A. Administrative Matters

     * Welcome
     * Select a Scribe
     * Distribute Participants List
     * Finalise Agenda
     * Approve Minutes: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/ncc-services/r49- 
minutes.html

B. Report from the RIPE NCC - Axel Pawlik
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-50/presentations/ripe50-serv- 
ncc-new.pdf

Axel noted that the reporting on the RIPE NCC would not be repeated  
in the General Meeting, scheduled to take place at 17:00.

Registration Services
Training
Engineering
New Projects
Coordination
Communications
Membership Relations
External Relations

There were no questions.

C. New LIR Survey - Results and Feedback - Paul Rendek (RIPE NCC)
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-50/presentations/ripe50- 
services-new-lir.pdf

There were no questions.

D. A New Version of the Hostcount
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-50/presentations/ripe50-serv- 
hostcount.pdf
RIPE NCC

Timur requests feedback on the value of this service.

Questions:
Kurtis asks how many are using this whois data?  Counts...yes, a few  
people using this data.
Anyone has any comments about proposed changes?

+/- 49 mins...

Lars-Johan Liman (Netnod):

Are you going to use this host query all over?

Timur:  Yes.

Lars-Johan Liman - Netnod:  Because I noticed some problems with some  
transfers.  So it should be configured to provide one answer instead  
of many answers.... so this is about the zone transfer format.

Timur:  Thank you for this.  We are going to review all the projects  
and maybe will modify the hostcount programme itself and maybe we  
should do a DNS as a backend which may be better.

Peter:  I want to respond on the remark made by the previous gentleman
The host programme is showing its age and the sad fact is that the  
author has passed away a couple of years ago and the program itself  
has been orphaned.  There are some problems in dealing with the new  
style referrals.  It would be useful to have that located at a well- 
known place, one of which could be the RIPE NCC.  And I would be  
willing to contribute.  As before I didn't do the coding, but it  
would be useful to develop that not only for the host count, but for  
DNS debugging as well.

Timur:  Well, we promised to provide a DIY kit.  We will come with a  
replacement on modified version of software.  And your input would be  
much appreciated.

Souissi Mohsen - AFNIC:  I browsed through the site and randomly did  
some cctld's to find out about things.  I was pleasantly surprised  
that there are detail on every cctld.
But i am quite worried about the relevance of these figures.  For  
example the zone count.  if these figures are to be used somewhere  
maybe there is a column missing - the estimate of error.  is there  
mathematical way to estimate that.  And do a disclaimer for people  
using these figures?

Timur:  Well, there is a disclaimer there,

Souissi Mohsen - AFNIC: Because the figures are, in some parts, very  
far from the reality

Timur:  We understand that, so that's why we are not claiming that  
it's something really precise.

Souissi Mohsen - AFNIC:  Thank you anyway.

Rob Blokzijl:  BTW the first hostcount counted 7200 hosts.  But that  
was never published.
Comment:  I was one of the few who raised their hand when you asked  
whether people were using it or whether it is useful.  I think its  
extremely useful because it is one of the few long term efforts to  
measure something of the internet in a consistent way.  It is more of  
a trans measurement than absolutely numbers.  I would like to see  
some sort of continuation of this and I think its important that  
potential users understand what it is .  What it is that you measure,  
what the conditions are and yes, its difficult to give error  
estimates, but people should use it as one of the few reliable trend  
figures.  You can see trends in many publications, but most are based  
on nothing and if you take any given moment in time, you have a rich  
choice of various trends, like the internet is not growing anymore or  
the internet is exploding  but at least this measures something that  
is definied and is not a hostcount as the name suggests, but you are  
measuring someting in a consistent way for many years, so you can  
draw some conclustions and I think that is the value.

Person from Vienna:  I wholly support this project and I am very  
pleased to see that there is further work being done on this.  i  
would just like to ask if, for the reverse dns counts may lirs  
volunteer to reform the divulged counts in the same way that some of  
us volunteerd to perfom forward counts for the country codes?

Timnur:  That's perfect.  We would like to see a participation.   
Thanks a lot.

Bruce Campbell:  with what you said about the accuracy - if you see  
the graph on the screen there is a section that says zones blocked  
etc.  that is the closest that you will get to seeing this is how  
inaccurate the figures are, because for every zone where we got a  
block, we have a completely unknown number of hosts that we couldn't  
count, which is why we started collecting the reverse count because  
its much easier to ennumerate through the reverse zones and not  
necessarily forward.  the downside is that people generally don't  
populate the reverse zones.  so if you have reverse zones, its  
putting them in dns is good.  its yet another trend.  its purely a  
trend thing with no relation to realiity.

Timur:  Thank you

Peter Kock - denic (one of the starting points into hostzone and long  
time support and i appreciate the effort and would like to see it  
continue).  I appreciate your new considerations of acceptable use  
and really, there is no acceptable use.  the raw data is no longer  
shipped, which is  probably one of the pre-conditions for the cctld  
registries to continue support for this project.  This is really  
important and we should talk about that.

Timur:  Thank you.

Out of time, so no open microphone.

Y. Open Microphone

Z. AOB
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