[arin-ppml] Correction to ASN-only Organization records otherwise without contacts (was: Re: Incorrect POC on resource records)

[John Curran]

On Sep 27, 2012, at 1:27 AM, John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:

> ...
> Steve is correct in that ARIN put the "No Known Contacts" in his
> organization record, and I'm currently reviewing the details on
> how and why this occurred.  It is _not_ a case of long-abandoned 
> registration of resources or failure to perform POC validation 
> (which I believe is what Ted is concerned about, with good reason)

We have researched the "No Known Contact" situation and we now have a clearer picture 
of exactly what caused this to occur as well as a solution for correcting it. 

In 2002, ARIN converted its existing database over to a relational database that tied 
all existing network and ASN registration records to a new Organization record. During 
this conversion, we took a phased approach to moving the existing Points of Contacts 
(POC) for these resources over to their newly created Organization records.  We first 
converted the network POC records, and then the network reassignment POC records, however,
we now see that the ASN POC records were never completed.  The result of this was that 
any organization who had _only_ a registered ASN in the database never had POCs added 
to their new Organization records.  This resulted in approximately 2034 ASN-only holders 
not having points of contacts on their new organization records, although POC information 
was available in the AS resource record associated with this organization. Again, this 
is a case of not copying contact information to the new Organization records; no POC 
information was ever lost or overwritten.

In Steve Noble's case, his ASN record has always shown him as the registered POC, but 
his POC handle was never added to his new organization record.  The POC handle "No Known
Contact" (CKN23-ARIN) was added to all Organization records in 2011 as the result of two
things: newly established business rules associated with ARIN's web portal (ARIN Online) 
and the implementation of a new policy that required Abuse POCs to be added to all Org 
records.  This is how the "No Known Contact" POC handle ended up being added to many 
organization records otherwise without contacts, including Steve's Organization record.

In order to rectify this situation,  ARIN will be applying the same criteria we originally 
used and will move the ASN POCs over to their associated Org records which otherwise have
no contacts, thus removing the "No Known Contact" handle from any of the Org records that 
fit this situation.  

I'd like to thank the folks who raised this issue, and apologize that it was not more 
promptly recognized as an implementation issue with the migration as opposed to individual 
registration issues.

FYI (and thank you for your patience),
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN