[ncc-services-wg] Mandatory maintainer on PERSON and ROLE objects

[Apologies for duplicate emails]

Dear Colleagues

Some time ago, the RIPE Data Protection Task Force recommended that all
RIPE Database objects should have a mandatory "mnt-by:" attribute. This
is to prevent easy corruption of data, either accidentally or
maliciously. There were three object types where this attribute was
optional. DOMAIN objects have already been changed to make this
attribute mandatory.

The RIPE NCC is now ready to deploy mandatory "mnt-by:" attributes on
PERSON and ROLE objects. A test server was made available in February
with this feature. Details can be found in the mail archive at:

http://www.ripe.net/ripe/maillists/archives/db-wg/2010/msg00084.html

This feature will be deployed during the week commencing 18 October 2010.

Initially, the only impact on maintainers of data in the RIPE Database
will be when PERSON or ROLE objects are created or modified. These
operations will fail if the data is not maintained. Additional warning
messages will be generated when other objects are modified that
reference unmaintained data. These warnings will not cause any database
operations to fail.

For new users of the RIPE Database, there is a start-up application
to create the first pair of PERSON/MNTNER objects available at:
http://apps.db.ripe.net/startup/

This is now the only way to create the first set of data objects in the
RIPE Database. Note the URL is different to the one in the mail archive
message above.

Regards
Denis Walker
Business Analyst
RIPE NCC Database Group