Subject: GA-DIGEST V1 #1540
From: [email-masked] (GA-DIGEST)
To: [email-masked]

GA-DIGEST          Friday, December 27 2002          Volume 01 : Number 1540

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 13:34:28 +0100
From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] whois: issues with uniformity

On Fri, Dec 27, 2002 at 10:44:44AM +0100,
 Vittorio Bertola <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 75 lines which said:

> The reasons given there are: "protection of intellectual property
> rights, consumer protection issues, investigation of illegal
> activities as well as daily routine business".

Let's expand a typical "daily routine business". You receive a spam
which advertises an email address in [email-masked]. You want to
complain to the people at coldmail.com. It is very convenient to find
an email address.

Or the email to [email-masked] bounces and you see that all the
nameservers of somewhere.bj are broken. It is very convenient to find
either an email address in another domain or a fax number to warn them.

(Do note that I gave examples where you know the domain. If you know
the IP address, such as when you are attacked by
Nimda/CodeRed/Microsoft-worm-of-the-day, you need also a whois
entry. They are provided by the RIRs which, unfortunately, are not the
object of the same public scrutiny as the ICANN.)

> The first three ones are good, but once you publish the name of the
> registrant, and perhaps a postal address, they have been satisfied.
> There's no need for my e-mail or telephone number. 

I disagree.

> breach of law, you can go to the police - they should have

Do note that, of the typical situations I gave as example, only one is
a (possible) breach of the law.

> >At least one very good reason: although not perfect, IETF is *much*
> >more democratic than ICANN. In the IETF, at-large participation (with
> >all its limits and its problems) is a reality for many years.
> 
> But it is a participation limited to a very technical environment. If
> this was enough, there would be no need for ICANN in the first place

Before ICANN, the root of the DNS was not managed by the IETF but by
another private US company.

> Now, we all know that ICANN has failed to build consensus around
> itself,

This is the understatement of the century :-)

> doubtful and yet to be proved. But this doesn't mean that the idea of
> a global policy forum, where only issues that strictly need global
> coordination are discussed, and where not just technical people are
> involved, is bad. (And please note that I *am* a technical person :) )

I do not see the issue as "technical persons who know better against
the ignorant mob of dummies". The good thing about IETF is not that it
is technical, it is that it tries to be democratic.

I agree that it would be nice to have a global (non technical) policy
body. But it does not exist. And ICANN does not show the slightest
sign of being able to be that body.

(Do note that I wrote "body" and not "forum": we have many forums,
such as this former GA list, icannwatch.org, etc. But forums are
places to talk, not to take decisions.)

> ICANN, even if slowly, is starting to build instruments
> for real public participation, and perhaps even funding them. If you
> want to go to the IETF as a user, you have to pay your trip.

I wasn't aware that ICANN has a budget for trips to Rio de Janeiro. I
will not apply, we have enough money in Europe, but does it mean that
people from Asia or Africa will be able to receive financial help for
the trip? On what grounds will the applications be accepted/refused?

> >This is why I directed people from the former GA toward the CRISP
> >woking group so they can provide useful input.
> 
> Is there still time, for example, to get amendments to that draft? Or
> is it too late?

I believe there is time. Thomas Roessler's proposal about
internationalization seems to have been accepted quite easily.

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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 13:07:24 -0000
From: "Abel Wisman" <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: [ga] whois: issues with uniformity

This has to be the umpteenth time these "arguments" have been used, and
never to the satisfaction of anyone except the ones using them.

The examples given are "nonsensical" at best, complaining to the "owner"
of a "spamvertized" domain is about the same as reacting to the "if you
want to be removed" line at the bottom of most.

Finding the domain owner when nameservers are down doesn't do you one
bit of good, most of them (99.98%) do not run those servers and
therefore can't do a thing and if anyone setting up a domain/dns file
does not have a "hostmaster@" address set, they don't deserve any
warning on "down" sites.

The attacks are normally spoofed so a decent ip tracking and an
IP-search will lead you to the IP-block "owner" and therefore far more
usefull contact points.

Furthermore on CRISP: this is a WG that is "discussing" how it will
define a standard mechanism that can be used for finding authoritative
information associated with a label, a protocol to transport queries and
responses for accessing that information, and a first profile (schema &
queries) to support commonly-required queries for domain registration
information. 

It is not a solution for current problems, because it is years away, if
not eternity, from reaching adulthood and it states itself it will not
be backward compatible with whois.

For now we have whois, which basic setup was ok, but has been abused
over the years.
Adeption of some simple "agreements" to the use/display of the whois
content could solve most problems with that whois.

If one reads the original rfc one will notice that each used field had a
usage, and non was ever containing the "owner's" address and email, for
the simple reason that the owner was not an interesting entity for the
usage of which whois was designed for.

It was not until later in the development that people were "allowed" to
fill in the other then owner fileds themselves, thus losing all sensible
uses for whois. The registry of that moment is "to blame" for that
development, not whois itself.

If usage of the fields would be restored to their original purpose and
content, then a lot of problems would be solved outright.

As for "cross-registry" searches, depending on the depth of that "need"
one needs the willing co-operation of all registries in the world,
something that is not likely to happen, due to local laws and political
situations.

It would be a good thing if the "search-strings" and "formats" would be
alike and for many cc-tld's this is already the case.
More indepth searchability is in my opinion something that is a
commercial venture development and therefore most likley not suitable
for any policy.

CRISP would fit such a bill, perhaps that is why VRGS is sponsoring it.

If you want to learn more about the work on whois, and make an impact of
no matter how big a size on the development of current whois, then you
are invited to read the whois TF maillist and submit comments to that
TF, which can still be done.

For now, whois is two things: a rfc to which most countries are
sensitive enough to have such a feature enabled and a contractual
obligation for g-tld's which most of them are unhappy with, demands on
the databases for the latter group would be for commercial reasons higly
unacceptable for those parties and with very good reasons, whether we
adhere to that or not.

Kind regards

Abel Wisman

- -----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
Of Stephane Bortzmeyer
Sent: 27 December 2002 12:34
To: Vittorio Bertola
Cc: Stephane Bortzmeyer; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [ga] whois: issues with uniformity

On Fri, Dec 27, 2002 at 10:44:44AM +0100,
 Vittorio Bertola <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 75 lines which said:

> The reasons given there are: "protection of intellectual property 
> rights, consumer protection issues, investigation of illegal 
> activities as well as daily routine business".

Let's expand a typical "daily routine business". You receive a spam
which advertises an email address in [email-masked]. You want to
complain to the people at coldmail.com. It is very convenient to find an
email address.

Or the email to [email-masked] bounces and you see that all the
nameservers of somewhere.bj are broken. It is very convenient to find
either an email address in another domain or a fax number to warn them.

(Do note that I gave examples where you know the domain. If you know the
IP address, such as when you are attacked by
Nimda/CodeRed/Microsoft-worm-of-the-day, you need also a whois entry.
They are provided by the RIRs which, unfortunately, are not the object
of the same public scrutiny as the ICANN.)

> The first three ones are good, but once you publish the name of the 
> registrant, and perhaps a postal address, they have been satisfied. 
> There's no need for my e-mail or telephone number.

I disagree.

> breach of law, you can go to the police - they should have

Do note that, of the typical situations I gave as example, only one is a
(possible) breach of the law.

> >At least one very good reason: although not perfect, IETF is *much* 
> >more democratic than ICANN. In the IETF, at-large participation (with

> >all its limits and its problems) is a reality for many years.
> 
> But it is a participation limited to a very technical environment. If 
> this was enough, there would be no need for ICANN in the first place

Before ICANN, the root of the DNS was not managed by the IETF but by
another private US company.

> Now, we all know that ICANN has failed to build consensus around 
> itself,

This is the understatement of the century :-)

> doubtful and yet to be proved. But this doesn't mean that the idea of 
> a global policy forum, where only issues that strictly need global 
> coordination are discussed, and where not just technical people are 
> involved, is bad. (And please note that I *am* a technical person :) )

I do not see the issue as "technical persons who know better against the
ignorant mob of dummies". The good thing about IETF is not that it is
technical, it is that it tries to be democratic.

I agree that it would be nice to have a global (non technical) policy
body. But it does not exist. And ICANN does not show the slightest sign
of being able to be that body.

(Do note that I wrote "body" and not "forum": we have many forums, such
as this former GA list, icannwatch.org, etc. But forums are places to
talk, not to take decisions.)

> ICANN, even if slowly, is starting to build instruments
> for real public participation, and perhaps even funding them. If you 
> want to go to the IETF as a user, you have to pay your trip.

I wasn't aware that ICANN has a budget for trips to Rio de Janeiro. I
will not apply, we have enough money in Europe, but does it mean that
people from Asia or Africa will be able to receive financial help for
the trip? On what grounds will the applications be accepted/refused?

> >This is why I directed people from the former GA toward the CRISP 
> >woking group so they can provide useful input.
> 
> Is there still time, for example, to get amendments to that draft? Or 
> is it too late?

I believe there is time. Thomas Roessler's proposal about
internationalization seems to have been accepted quite easily.

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list. Send mail
to [email-masked] to unsubscribe ("unsubscribe ga-full" in the body
of the message). Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 10:35:41 -0800
From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] whois: issues with uniformity

Stephane and all former DNSO GA members,

Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 26, 2002 at 11:08:06PM -0600,
>  Don Brown <[email-masked]> wrote
>  a message of 129 lines which said:
>
> > So, if the ICANN shoe doesn't fit someone, in the final analysis, then
> > don't wear it.  What is ICANN going to do about it - declare war on a
> > ccTLD?
>
> This is not how it works. ICANN controls the root. When ns.eu.net
> disappeared in the bankrupt of KPNQwest, ICANN refused to update the
> NS delegations for the ccTLDs which refused to sign the ICANN/DOC
> contract.

  No, ICANN does not control the root yet.  DOC does.  As to the
NS delegations for ccTLD's which refused to sign the
ICANN/DOC Contract, DOC intervened in that situation after
ICANN made the particular refusals.

>
>
> As of today, the problem has been solved for '.de' or '.fr' but it is
> still lingering for '.al' or other domains which probably do not have
> the same vocal power.
>
> So, ICANN/DOC has a real power, unfortunately.

  DOC/NTIA, yes, ICANN has influence with DOC/NTIA,
but as to how much power ICANN has is debatable and
of course always negotiable..

>

Regards,

- --
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 127k members/stakeholders strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [email-masked]
Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 972-244-3801
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 10:48:03 -0800
From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] Re: [ecdiscuss] whois: issues with uniformity

Stephane and all former DNSO GA members,

Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 26, 2002 at 08:11:57PM -0800,
>  Jeff Williams <[email-masked]> wrote
>  a message of 89 lines which said:
>
> >   Indeed ICANN is not in charge of determining global Whois policy
> > of which protocol will or should be used, now or in the future.  However
> > ICANN is trying with the help of the IETF, the BC and the IPC to
> > have a heavy influence on Whois.
>
> I disagree with this vision, which summarizes everything into One Big
> Conspiracy.

  I implied no conspiracy at all in my comments above.  Ergo I must
admit to being confused as to how you arrived at that conclusion
from my above comment/observation.

> IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force
> <URL:http://www.ietf.org/>) has its own weaknesses, but it is not a
> subsidiary of ICANN.

  No the IETF is not and never has been a subsidiary of ICANN.  However
ICANN has officially recognized that the IETF is considered it's
"Good Right hand/arm" as VInt cerf stated about two years ago now..

>
>
> > in ways that may be both beneficial or detrimental...  Privacy
> > and security are two of those concerns with Whois and Whois
> > policy as well as policy and use..
>
> It is certainly a big issue for the future .eu domain. This is why
> EUREG <URL:http://www.eureg.org/> is spending time about this
> question.

  It is a big question/issue for many ccTLD's as well as gTLD's as well.
I would say even more important with respect to gTLD's, because of their
obvious global encompassing nature...

>
>
> >   None the less as CRISP and a number or other private enterprise
> > IT organizations, both for profit and not for profit are working on a
> > number of new or updated Whois protocols that have been expounded
> > here on the former DNSO GA and hopefully will again be presented
> > to and within the now questionable "GNSO"..
>
> For those not versed in Internet history, do note that the CRISP
> effort at the IETF is not, by far, the first attempt to overcome the
> limitations of the old and aged whois protocol. (The main problem with
> whois is the fact that the output is not standardized and not easily
> parsable by programs. Unfortunately, the CRISP working group added
> other requirments, such as cross-registries searches, which are both
> expensive and possibly dangerous for privacy. These new requirments
> jeopardize the whole effort.)

  I disagree with the view that CRISP's stated requirements jeopardize
the whole effort.  Indeed they do add another level of complexity, but
also functionality as well.  Weighing the two, and finding if they balance
or not is perhaps a concern, and certainly a consideration...

>
>
> All the previous attempts (X500, whois++, rwhois) failed, we'll see if
> CRISP does it better.
>
> > abused or misused.  This therefore must be IOHO, in the hands of the
> > registrant alone...
>
> I agree that the registrant must have a word to say but we need also
> laws (like "Loi Informatiques et Libertés" in France) to protect
> him/her. Not everyone is fluent in P3P :-)

  Good point.  Indeed, some countries have such strong privacy
protections, such as the US and France.  Others are slowly
developing them...  None the less such laws will be consumer/stakeholder
driven if ICANN or DOC/NTIA or even other governments do not
act quickly or adequately enough for their populace...

Regards,
- --
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 127k members/stakeholders strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [email-masked]
Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 972-244-3801
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
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Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 11:11:59 -0800
From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] whois: issues with uniformity

Abel and all former DNSO GA members,

Abel Wisman wrote:

> This has to be the umpteenth time these "arguments" have been used, and
> never to the satisfaction of anyone except the ones using them.

  This is rather a profound and unsubstantiated statement IMHO.
Indeed I would disagree, not to your surprise I am sure Abel..
I would tend to disagree because this issue 3 years ago wasn't
even being discussed anywhere I know of in relation to Whois.
Now, and of the past 2 years, it is debated, discussed in a number
of circles, suits have been filed, won, lost around this issue...

>
>
> The examples given are "nonsensical" at best, complaining to the "owner"
> of a "spamvertized" domain is about the same as reacting to the "if you
> want to be removed" line at the bottom of most.

  Again this seem to me to be a gross overstatement as well...  Indeed
most of the time when I personally have responded to the "if you
want to be removed" line at the bottom of a spam mail my request
is acted upon.

>
>
> Finding the domain owner when nameservers are down doesn't do you one
> bit of good, most of them (99.98%) do not run those servers and
> therefore can't do a thing and if anyone setting up a domain/dns file
> does not have a "hostmaster@" address set, they don't deserve any
> warning on "down" sites.

  You have a very good point here...

>
>
> The attacks are normally spoofed so a decent ip tracking and an
> IP-search will lead you to the IP-block "owner" and therefore far more
> usefull contact points.

  Sometimes yes, and sometimes no...

>
>
> Furthermore on CRISP: this is a WG that is "discussing" how it will
> define a standard mechanism that can be used for finding authoritative
> information associated with a label, a protocol to transport queries and
> responses for accessing that information, and a first profile (schema &
> queries) to support commonly-required queries for domain registration
> information.
>
> It is not a solution for current problems, because it is years away, if
> not eternity, from reaching adulthood and it states itself it will not
> be backward compatible with whois.
>
> For now we have whois, which basic setup was ok, but has been abused
> over the years.
> Adeption of some simple "agreements" to the use/display of the whois
> content could solve most problems with that whois.
>
> If one reads the original rfc one will notice that each used field had a
> usage, and non was ever containing the "owner's" address and email, for
> the simple reason that the owner was not an interesting entity for the
> usage of which whois was designed for.
>
> It was not until later in the development that people were "allowed" to
> fill in the other then owner fileds themselves, thus losing all sensible
> uses for whois. The registry of that moment is "to blame" for that
> development, not whois itself.

  Very well argued and presented here Abel.  I have heard this similar
argument from a number of our members in various forms, many times.
But my concern with this argument is that registries are run/operated
by people.  Most of those now are ICANN'ites of various flavors
due to the lottery selection of new TLD's fiasco in MdR2000.  Hence
the political impetus coming indirectly from those registry people,
contracted
to ICANN and therefore obligated to a degree to ICANN are predisposed
to pull the ICANN line.  And for the most part they do...

>
>
> If usage of the fields would be restored to their original purpose and
> content, then a lot of problems would be solved outright.

  I also agree with you here as well.  But this is not likely now..

>
>
> As for "cross-registry" searches, depending on the depth of that "need"
> one needs the willing co-operation of all registries in the world,
> something that is not likely to happen, due to local laws and political
> situations.

  Perhaps so.  Yet cooperation from ICANN gTLD registries will be
made mandatory or at least contractually obligated... And some ccTLD's
will eventually find their way into the ICANN fold unless another
Root structure becomes more attractive...

>
>
> It would be a good thing if the "search-strings" and "formats" would be
> alike and for many cc-tld's this is already the case.
> More indepth searchability is in my opinion something that is a
> commercial venture development and therefore most likley not suitable
> for any policy.
>
> CRISP would fit such a bill, perhaps that is why VRGS is sponsoring it.
>
> If you want to learn more about the work on whois, and make an impact of
> no matter how big a size on the development of current whois, then you
> are invited to read the whois TF maillist and submit comments to that
> TF, which can still be done.

  Just another black hole and in fact does not actually work.  Seems
only some very few participants are allowed to post to [email-masked]

>
>
> For now, whois is two things: a rfc to which most countries are
> sensitive enough to have such a feature enabled and a contractual
> obligation for g-tld's which most of them are unhappy with, demands on
> the databases for the latter group would be for commercial reasons higly
> unacceptable for those parties and with very good reasons, whether we
> adhere to that or not.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Abel Wisman
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
> Of Stephane Bortzmeyer
> Sent: 27 December 2002 12:34
> To: Vittorio Bertola
> Cc: Stephane Bortzmeyer; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [ga] whois: issues with uniformity
>
> On Fri, Dec 27, 2002 at 10:44:44AM +0100,
>  Vittorio Bertola <[email-masked]> wrote
>  a message of 75 lines which said:
>
> > The reasons given there are: "protection of intellectual property
> > rights, consumer protection issues, investigation of illegal
> > activities as well as daily routine business".
>
> Let's expand a typical "daily routine business". You receive a spam
> which advertises an email address in [email-masked]. You want to
> complain to the people at coldmail.com. It is very convenient to find an
> email address.
>
> Or the email to [email-masked] bounces and you see that all the
> nameservers of somewhere.bj are broken. It is very convenient to find
> either an email address in another domain or a fax number to warn them.
>
> (Do note that I gave examples where you know the domain. If you know the
> IP address, such as when you are attacked by
> Nimda/CodeRed/Microsoft-worm-of-the-day, you need also a whois entry.
> They are provided by the RIRs which, unfortunately, are not the object
> of the same public scrutiny as the ICANN.)
>
> > The first three ones are good, but once you publish the name of the
> > registrant, and perhaps a postal address, they have been satisfied.
> > There's no need for my e-mail or telephone number.
>
> I disagree.
>
> > breach of law, you can go to the police - they should have
>
> Do note that, of the typical situations I gave as example, only one is a
> (possible) breach of the law.
>
> > >At least one very good reason: although not perfect, IETF is *much*
> > >more democratic than ICANN. In the IETF, at-large participation (with
>
> > >all its limits and its problems) is a reality for many years.
> >
> > But it is a participation limited to a very technical environment. If
> > this was enough, there would be no need for ICANN in the first place
>
> Before ICANN, the root of the DNS was not managed by the IETF but by
> another private US company.
>
> > Now, we all know that ICANN has failed to build consensus around
> > itself,
>
> This is the understatement of the century :-)
>
> > doubtful and yet to be proved. But this doesn't mean that the idea of
> > a global policy forum, where only issues that strictly need global
> > coordination are discussed, and where not just technical people are
> > involved, is bad. (And please note that I *am* a technical person :) )
>
> I do not see the issue as "technical persons who know better against the
> ignorant mob of dummies". The good thing about IETF is not that it is
> technical, it is that it tries to be democratic.
>
> I agree that it would be nice to have a global (non technical) policy
> body. But it does not exist. And ICANN does not show the slightest sign
> of being able to be that body.
>
> (Do note that I wrote "body" and not "forum": we have many forums, such
> as this former GA list, icannwatch.org, etc. But forums are places to
> talk, not to take decisions.)
>
> > ICANN, even if slowly, is starting to build instruments
> > for real public participation, and perhaps even funding them. If you
> > want to go to the IETF as a user, you have to pay your trip.
>
> I wasn't aware that ICANN has a budget for trips to Rio de Janeiro. I
> will not apply, we have enough money in Europe, but does it mean that
> people from Asia or Africa will be able to receive financial help for
> the trip? On what grounds will the applications be accepted/refused?
>
> > >This is why I directed people from the former GA toward the CRISP
> > >woking group so they can provide useful input.
> >
> > Is there still time, for example, to get amendments to that draft? Or
> > is it too late?
>
> I believe there is time. Thomas Roessler's proposal about
> internationalization seems to have been accepted quite easily.
>
>
> --
> This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list. Send mail
> to [email-masked] to unsubscribe ("unsubscribe ga-full" in the body
> of the message). Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html
>
> --
> This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
> Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
> ("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
> Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

Regards,

- --
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 127k members/stakeholders strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [email-masked]
Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 972-244-3801
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208

- --
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Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 16:54:49 +0100
From: "J-F C. (Jefsey)  Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: [ga] whois: issues with uniformity

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Dear Abel,
You are fully right, but if you want to have a global scope I think you are 
just missing one small element: billing.

The interest is not the e-mail name in case of incident but the credit card 
number. Progressively through the Whois work what is emerging is a 
cross-billing format (also TIA compatible) that banks, ISPs, registries can 
exchange and jointly work on. The real problem is the industrial billing of 
billions of people at low rate, cross-subsidizing under different laws. It 
will have a tremendous exponential cost if ill adressed. Anyone who has 
managed or planned to manage more than 2 millions customers will tell it to 
you and then International serious operations. When you consider 2 billions 
.... you understand why Mr. Bill Gates start loving IETF solutions: M$ 
billing as the Internet billing is quite an interesting proposition. Cross 
subsidization will also be permitted and social help programs will permit 
to root M$ in the Gov life.

Then we will have .health needing to register everyone on earth for its 
health resume and recording the his cost for insurrance companies. Do not 
worry the genome signature will be part of the whois soon enough. To make 
sure you get the proper treatment .... if you forget to pay your bi-monthly 
license to Bill. etc.

As an university prototype the Internet has no built-in economical model. 
It has tried the DN oddity which does not really stand. It has tried the 
copyrights, the TM as ways of giving some economical sense to that non 
sense. The same as the USG is trying to give it a political sense.

The problem is that if the Internet cannot economically exist but it does 
exist in reality. So we are now seeing some attempts at giving it some 
economical logic. The problem is that you cannot give an economical logic 
to a technical lack of architecture and to the legal absurdity that ICANN 
has fostered. Many many things must adapt or be changed before.

There are a few rules to be used here:

1. the Internet must be made a network system where a simple consistent 
billing logic applies between carriers (ISPs) and with users. M$ is an 
interesting money collection service: it already collects licence fees for 
Windows.

2. the true customer must be identified : one does not sell a network to 
its users but to the ones who need it to be used (usually the hosts). Look 
at cinema, Hollywood is not charging you directly. Up to now distribution 
used to use geographical channels, addressing local law and language 
issues. Universalization calls for tuning, but do not be afraid we will 
find the proper model (and adapt the technology to it).

3. never oppose innovation, use it. A real challenge is wifi. You do not 
work with technology, you sell to people. The business is not TV, radio, 
etc. it is noosphere (users brains interacting together the way they want 
after many changing fashions).

4. do not think the existing technology is going to stay. I would not be 
surprised if non one used TCP/IP 10 years from now anymore.

5. call on professionals and screen them to make sure they have no business 
agenda. Please tell me who on the BoD would you really hire to be on the 
board of a Telco, or an airline network, or on a TV network. Who has really 
the experience of how large international operations, billing, marketing, 
public services etc. work? Before joining the BoD you should have organized 
the Olympic Games or the Soccer World Cup and to have been on the board of 
a 10 millions and more customer/members organization.

The whois? You perfectly right it has absolutely no interest. If you really 
want to know who to call for a host problem: use nslookup.

Again www is far better than whois to get an information on a site :-)
jfc

On 14:07 27/12/02, Abel Wisman said:
>This has to be the umpteenth time these "arguments" have been used, and
>never to the satisfaction of anyone except the ones using them.
>
>
>The examples given are "nonsensical" at best, complaining to the "owner"
>of a "spamvertized" domain is about the same as reacting to the "if you
>want to be removed" line at the bottom of most.
>
>Finding the domain owner when nameservers are down doesn't do you one
>bit of good, most of them (99.98%) do not run those servers and
>therefore can't do a thing and if anyone setting up a domain/dns file
>does not have a "hostmaster@" address set, they don't deserve any
>warning on "down" sites.
>
>The attacks are normally spoofed so a decent ip tracking and an
>IP-search will lead you to the IP-block "owner" and therefore far more
>usefull contact points.
>
>
>Furthermore on CRISP: this is a WG that is "discussing" how it will
>define a standard mechanism that can be used for finding authoritative
>information associated with a label, a protocol to transport queries and
>responses for accessing that information, and a first profile (schema &
>queries) to support commonly-required queries for domain registration
>information.
>
>It is not a solution for current problems, because it is years away, if
>not eternity, from reaching adulthood and it states itself it will not
>be backward compatible with whois.
>
>For now we have whois, which basic setup was ok, but has been abused
>over the years.
>Adeption of some simple "agreements" to the use/display of the whois
>content could solve most problems with that whois.
>
>If one reads the original rfc one will notice that each used field had a
>usage, and non was ever containing the "owner's" address and email, for
>the simple reason that the owner was not an interesting entity for the
>usage of which whois was designed for.
>
>
>It was not until later in the development that people were "allowed" to
>fill in the other then owner fileds themselves, thus losing all sensible
>uses for whois. The registry of that moment is "to blame" for that
>development, not whois itself.
>
>If usage of the fields would be restored to their original purpose and
>content, then a lot of problems would be solved outright.
>
>As for "cross-registry" searches, depending on the depth of that "need"
>one needs the willing co-operation of all registries in the world,
>something that is not likely to happen, due to local laws and political
>situations.
>
>It would be a good thing if the "search-strings" and "formats" would be
>alike and for many cc-tld's this is already the case.
>More indepth searchability is in my opinion something that is a
>commercial venture development and therefore most likley not suitable
>for any policy.
>
>CRISP would fit such a bill, perhaps that is why VRGS is sponsoring it.
>
>If you want to learn more about the work on whois, and make an impact of
>no matter how big a size on the development of current whois, then you
>are invited to read the whois TF maillist and submit comments to that
>TF, which can still be done.
>
>For now, whois is two things: a rfc to which most countries are
>sensitive enough to have such a feature enabled and a contractual
>obligation for g-tld's which most of them are unhappy with, demands on
>the databases for the latter group would be for commercial reasons higly
>unacceptable for those parties and with very good reasons, whether we
>adhere to that or not.
>
>Kind regards
>
>Abel Wisman
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
>Of Stephane Bortzmeyer
>Sent: 27 December 2002 12:34
>To: Vittorio Bertola
>Cc: Stephane Bortzmeyer; [email-masked]
>Subject: Re: [ga] whois: issues with uniformity
>
>
>On Fri, Dec 27, 2002 at 10:44:44AM +0100,
>  Vittorio Bertola <[email-masked]> wrote
>  a message of 75 lines which said:
>
> > The reasons given there are: "protection of intellectual property
> > rights, consumer protection issues, investigation of illegal
> > activities as well as daily routine business".
>
>Let's expand a typical "daily routine business". You receive a spam
>which advertises an email address in [email-masked]. You want to
>complain to the people at coldmail.com. It is very convenient to find an
>email address.
>
>Or the email to [email-masked] bounces and you see that all the
>nameservers of somewhere.bj are broken. It is very convenient to find
>either an email address in another domain or a fax number to warn them.
>
>(Do note that I gave examples where you know the domain. If you know the
>IP address, such as when you are attacked by
>Nimda/CodeRed/Microsoft-worm-of-the-day, you need also a whois entry.
>They are provided by the RIRs which, unfortunately, are not the object
>of the same public scrutiny as the ICANN.)
>
> > The first three ones are good, but once you publish the name of the
> > registrant, and perhaps a postal address, they have been satisfied.
> > There's no need for my e-mail or telephone number.
>
>I disagree.
>
> > breach of law, you can go to the police - they should have
>
>Do note that, of the typical situations I gave as example, only one is a
>(possible) breach of the law.
>
> > >At least one very good reason: although not perfect, IETF is *much*
> > >more democratic than ICANN. In the IETF, at-large participation (with
>
> > >all its limits and its problems) is a reality for many years.
> >
> > But it is a participation limited to a very technical environment. If
> > this was enough, there would be no need for ICANN in the first place
>
>Before ICANN, the root of the DNS was not managed by the IETF but by
>another private US company.
>
> > Now, we all know that ICANN has failed to build consensus around
> > itself,
>
>This is the understatement of the century :-)
>
> > doubtful and yet to be proved. But this doesn't mean that the idea of
> > a global policy forum, where only issues that strictly need global
> > coordination are discussed, and where not just technical people are
> > involved, is bad. (And please note that I *am* a technical person :) )
>
>I do not see the issue as "technical persons who know better against the
>ignorant mob of dummies". The good thing about IETF is not that it is
>technical, it is that it tries to be democratic.
>
>I agree that it would be nice to have a global (non technical) policy
>body. But it does not exist. And ICANN does not show the slightest sign
>of being able to be that body.
>
>(Do note that I wrote "body" and not "forum": we have many forums, such
>as this former GA list, icannwatch.org, etc. But forums are places to
>talk, not to take decisions.)
>
> > ICANN, even if slowly, is starting to build instruments
> > for real public participation, and perhaps even funding them. If you
> > want to go to the IETF as a user, you have to pay your trip.
>
>I wasn't aware that ICANN has a budget for trips to Rio de Janeiro. I
>will not apply, we have enough money in Europe, but does it mean that
>people from Asia or Africa will be able to receive financial help for
>the trip? On what grounds will the applications be accepted/refused?
>
> > >This is why I directed people from the former GA toward the CRISP
> > >woking group so they can provide useful input.
> >
> > Is there still time, for example, to get amendments to that draft? Or
> > is it too late?
>
>I believe there is time. Thomas Roessler's proposal about
>internationalization seems to have been accepted quite easily.
>
>
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