[ppml] New WHOIS policy approved

[Owen DeLong]

--On April 19, 2006 1:11:53 PM +0100 Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com wrote:

>> Why?  There is not much of a relationship between the ICANN gTLD
>> whois and the LIR whois data and I see no reason that the policies
>> should somehow be synchronized.  Domains and IPs are different
>> and serve different purposes.
> 
> The gTLD whois and LIR whois are twin sisters born of the 
> same mother (ARPANET). They only diverged when the Internic
> was split into separate RIRs and gTLD registries. As fraternal
> twin sisters, they share various genetic similarities and 
> have suffered similar perversions at the hands of commercial
> interests.
> 
True, but, no longer particularly relevant to the practice
and purpose of either.  Even back in the day of SRI InterNIC,
the use and content of IP registration whois data and Domain
whois data was different. I would say they are sisters, but,
I'm not so sure they're twins rather than step sisters. I think
they had different fathers.

> Now, the ICANN folks are bringing their whois policies in
> from the cold, and closer to their original intention.
> I think it is highly appropriate for ARIN to do something
> similar and expect to see a policy proposal on this in a few
> months from now.
> 
I guess we can agree to disagree on this.  I think that the amount
of indirection and misdirection allowed by ICANNs new domain
policy is a bad idea and I'd hate to see it added to ARIN
whois policy, no matter how convenient it is for BT.

> Note, that Domains and IPs do share some characteristics.
> They are both delegated to an official holder. They are both
> associated with Internet endpoints. They are both trackable
> within the network infrastructure. 
> 
Domains are not associated with internet endpoints in any way
other than their ability to be mapped to an IP address.  Domains
are loosely coupled with IP addresses.  The only use of a domain
is to provide a handle for lookup in a directory.  IP addresses,
OTOH, are used for traffic delivery and specify a particular
point on the internet (notwithstanding anycast and multicast
for the moment).

Since domains are not reliably mapped in a bidirectional manner,
domain whois data is only minimally useful in dealing with a
real time security event and as such, I'm far less concerned
about it having useful content.

> I agree that the policies should not be mindlessly synchronized
> however, I also feel that the policies need to be made completely
> clear and also be within ARIN's scope of activity.
> 
I don't think that clarifying whois policy would be a bad thing
at all.  I just don't want to see that clarification include
the kind of wiggle room just offered to spammers in the new
ICANN policy.

Owen

-- 
If it wasn't crypto-signed, it probably didn't come from me.
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