[ppml] Policy Proposal 2007-1 - Staff Assessment

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

>      5.	A PGP-key for hostmaster at arin.net exists on 
> pgp.mit.edu as well
> as other well-known PGP-key repositories.  This key was set up during
> the early days of ARIN, and the passphrase for the key is, as of this
> writing, MIA.  This prevents ARIN from using the key to sign anything,
> and furthermore prevents ARIN from removing the key from the key
> repositories mentioned above.  Although ARIN could proceed by 
> generating
> a new PGP-key, we would need to use a limited distribution mechanism
> that excludes well-known servers, since more than one key for the same
> e-mail address cannot exist in the key servers. 

The solution to this is to retire the archaic and obscure term
"hostmaster" in favor of something straighforward like
"regsvcs at arin.net". Of course the old address could continue to receive
email indefinitely, but it would no longer be mentioned in any current
documents nor would it be used to send any email.

> The difficulties introduced by changing
> the well-known e-mail address of hostmaster at arin.net to some other
> address makes such a change an unattractive option.

I disagree on this point. As long as the old email address continues to
accept email, it should not be hard to change the address, just somewhat
tedious to find all occurences of it. People who intend to *CHANGE*
their processes to use PGP, will have no difficulty in changing the
email address that they use.

>      6.	Currently ARIN uses two e-mail addresses, 
> hostmaster at arin.net
> and reassign at arin.net, to accept e-mail. The purpose for the
> differentiation is primarily workflow-related: submissions to 
> hostmaster
> are generally handled manually while submissions to reassign are
> generally able to be handled by automated software. 

Not true. All mail to ARIN is handled by automated software known as a
mail server. This software makes dispatching decisions based on message
content. Why can't all email go to regsvcs at arin.net and then get
dispatched, based on SUBJECT line (or template in message body)?
Admittedly you would need to make some systems changes, but this is not
a technically difficult thing to do.

--Michael Dillon