RWHOIS proposal

[James W. Laferriere]

	Hello Shane

On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Shane Kerr wrote:
> On 2001-10-04 10:55:09 -0400, Lee Howard wrote:
  ...snip...
> > So, ultimately, if the membership agrees that RWHOIS is a Good Thing,
> > this would create an incentive for them to use it.  If it creates less
> > work for ARIN, so much the better.
>
> Does the membership agree RWHOIS is a Good Thing?  IIRC, it was
> something that the IP registration office at InterNIC (then run by
> Network Solutions) had proposed and set up.  Was there any community
> involvement or discussion before this?  (There may have been, but it was
> not a member community the way ARIN is.)
	I have recommended to my (ABS) representitive that a resounding
	'Yes' should be reported .

> I agree less work for ARIN is a good thing, but there are disadvantages
> to a distributed database.  Among these are:
>
> 1. No guarantee of data integrity.
>    I consider this a real problem for RWHOIS data because there is
>    some incentive for operators to provide a reduced subset of data, or
>    even incorrect, information.  With SWIP, ARIN has a record of all
>    database changes so this kind of switcheraoo is impossible.
	And not sending in a SWIP is valid data ???
	Too many providers (whether mis-informed or just lazy) are
	not reporting all or any data via swip or rwhoisd .  At least
	with a rwhoisd there is a another tool they may use to provide
	-some- data to Arin/Ripe/Apnic/... & if by chance someone
	create(s/d) a nice browser front end and made it easy to use
	without a 2 step process (w/ integrity checking as well) rwhoisd
	could be just that much more easy to use .

> 2. No guarantee of reliability.
>    Unlike DNS, where it is in the interest of the administrator to keep
>    the service running, with RWHOIS the only users that the
>    administrator cares about are internal, customers, or ARIN staff.
>    There is simply no incentive to produce a reliable public database
>    by ISP's.  ARIN, however, does have incentive to provide this
>    database.
	Yup ,  $'s .  Even if it is non-profit .  That said ,  I am
	almost sure that very few if any providers would supply a
	accurate(*) database of their alloc's unless an agency such as
	Arin were about .  (* = some definition of accurate)

> Surely this is not an exhaustive list.  There are, of course, advantages
> to RWHOIS, but personally I'd prefer a robust, user-friendly ARIN-run
> database to a distributed database.
	I have to semi-disagree .  rwhoisd is just another tool in the
	never ending battle to allow the (arin/...) customer to
	interface with them .

> --
> Shane
> Carpe Diem
> Any opinions expressed are not necessarily those of anyone else.

James W. Laferriere
Research Engineer
jlaferriere at adelphia.net
814.260.3697 Voice
814.260.3760 Fax