[arin-discuss] The joy of SWIPping

On May 13, 2008, at 12:09 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote:

> Why is it always about SPAM?  Let me give you some other real  
> examples:
>
> Customer A rents a server for his Clan.  Clan A.  It's not a  
> business so his
> personal information with his home address gets put in the SWIP.   
> Clan B
> gets ticked off at Clan A and sends someone over to the address in  
> the SWIP
> (since the domain was private) and threatens his life in front of his
> family.  VERY angry customer calls me the next day demanding his  
> info be
> removed and threatening to sue for breach of privacy.
>
> Customer B runs a political forum.  User A doesn't like what  
> Customer B
> posts so he starts sending death threats to Customer B's wife.   
> Domain is
> private but there's actually a mistake in the SWIP info that shows  
> up on the
> address which makes it easy to figure out where User A got his info.
> Customer B's wife is hysterical which causes Customer B to be very  
> angry
> with me.
>
> I tried to tell both of these guys that I HAVE to do it because  
> otherwise I
> can't get new IPs and it HAS to be right because, after all, they  
> might be
> spammers but it just didn't fly.
>
> Both of these examples really happened.  We lost both customers and  
> the
> police had to get involved.
>
> One other question for everyone out there that's sort of related,  
> How do you
> reconcile posting customer information in a public database with your
> privacy policy?
>

Because PUBLIC information is not PRIVATE... Couldn't I find out about  
Customer A and B by looking in the phone book.  By using Google or  
Google Earth?  All this information can be obtained through numerous  
other methods.  I find it hard to believe that name/address/tel in a  
whois DB is somehow responsible for all the spam on the planet.  I  
understand the argument, I just think things are a bit overstated here.


Regards,
Jeremy Anthony Kinsey
  e-mail: jer at mia.net
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