[consult] Call for Consultation: ARIN WHOIS Directory Services

I wanted to followup on Heather's suggestions, because I think she's
managed a very thorough listing of the ideas floating around the
community.

On Wed, Jul 25, 2007 at 09:09:25PM +0000, Heather Schiller wrote:
> I support the existing suggestions of:
>   -support for CIDR queries
>   -Following rwhois referrals
>   -Most of Mike Loevner's post - except that searching for 12.0.0.0/9 
> should return the  /8 (not nothing at all, because IMO, that would be 
> misleading)

These three are absolutely must-haves, and I agree with Heather's final point.

>   -method to login online and manage your swip records and other arin
>    records (would be even better if the login method was with an RSA token
>    or the like)

I suspect this would be really useful for PA holders.  As a PI member, I don't
have nearly as much use for this, but I can see the utility of it.

> And would like to add the following suggestions:
> 
> -Whowas info - be able to search historical whois info enter a prefix and 
> specify a date range or starting date with a default through the present. 
> This would help in researching claims of hijacked blocks.

An interesting idea, although I suspect this would take a lot more time
to implement.  Let's make this a secondary priority, although an
important one.
 
> -Clearly Mark Early Registration records with ERX as RIPE does - and 
> remove the ERX marking when a resource is brought uptodate/under RSA

Yes, please.  This one seems pretty easy, frankly.
 
> -Mark 'invalid contact information' on whois records when it has been 
> reported and confirmed by ARIN staff as such

This would be useful...any ideas on how many records would be impacted?
 
> -Be able to enter a POC handle and get a listing of the resources where 
> that POC handle is a contact.

I'm always surprised when this doesn't work - please make this another top
priority.
 
> -Add the ability to prepend searches with * for wildcard
>   to be able to do wildcard searches on the beginning instead of just the 
> tail

I would extend this to simply support some sort of regexp expansion.

I think there's also a vital need for a web page or two that explains
all of these features in the (at present hypothetical) new whois
server.  A usage guide would be a bare minimum requirement.

Thanks!

-David