[ncc-services-wg] IP geolocation services

On Oct 27, 2009, at 5:36 PM, Peter Koch wrote:

> Wilfried,
>
>> particular end-system using a particualr address, at a particular  
>> point in
>> time, from a block registered in a particular RIR's DB as an  
>> assignment is
>> very bad idea to begin with.
>>
>> At least for the RIPE-DB, there are no agreed or definend semantics  
>> for
>> the interpretation of the country: attribute. The data is a hint,  
>> at best.
>
> agreed, but the problem in question is not necessarily related to the
> RIPE DB being used as source of the geolocation information.  What  
> seems
> to be desirable is some notification of changes when a certain address
> block is unassigned or, more importantly, reassigned.  This doesn't
> have to provide the new location information, but should initiate a  
> new
> run of the location magic for this address range, so the GeoLoc  
> provider
> knows when to update/refresh which information.
>
> Of course, we know similar demands from the domain business and these
> requests aren't all free of concern, but the situation might be  
> different
> here in the addressing world.

Address blocks are quarantined for a while when they are returned, so  
I guess that anybody who regularly checks the database should notice  
they went missing and this could be a nice hint that those addresses  
aren't in use anymore and any data associated with it should be removed.

Or are you proposing more of a push system in which the RIR tries to  
find and notify those people who collect these data to notify them  
there have been changes.

A third solution would be to publish a sort of BOGON list which  
contains all unallocated blocks in s machine parseable format, this  
might even be usefull for other purposes as well, but I can aleady  
think of two problems: First of all there is a risk that people built  
filters based on this list and those might not get updated again, so  
we try and debogonize space forever instead just once when the /8  
comes down from IANA, secondly if people are starting to use this list  
as a way to generate filters we again create some form of 'off button'  
for the internet and that might give people the wrng idea that the NCC  
in fact can do something about abuse or other "illegal" activities (I  
use quotes here because it's hard to define the term in an  
international situation, what may be illegal in your eyes migth be  
perfectly legal in other parts of the world).

I can think of option 1 happening, in fact that mechanism is there,  
option 2 (push) is almost impossible to achieve and I don't like  
option 3 at all.

Grtx,

Marco