Re: [ga] WHOIS policy primer

[Karl Auerbach <karl@cavebear.com>]

On Tue, 27 Aug 2002, todd glassey wrote:

> becuase there MUST be some way of registering a data base wherein the owner
> operators of domains are accessible. If not WHOIS, then what?

That is a fallacy.

There is no operational reason to have publicly visible contact
information for a domain name.

The only reason that such information has been required has been to
placate the intellectual property interests who demand to know who domain
name owners are (but who want to hide their own identities when they file
WLS subscriptions.)

The contact information for IP addresses does have operational value,  
is more likely to be correct, and the lookup key (the IP address) is much 
less likely to be forged than a domain name.

If you want to know from whence something is coming or has come, look to 
the IP address then go to the IP allocation databases maintained by the 
RIRs.

Of course, with any database containing personally identifiable
information, the rules of access ought to require that you leave your own
identity and proof of that identity so that the data subject can know you
were looking.  But there is no such obligation placed on those who mine 
DNS/whois for commercial gain or worse.

> because the WHOIS entry pertains to the public name that you are publishing.
> By that act, the registering of a domain name, there is an inherent
> agreement to be published in WHOIS.

If that were the case then the identity of those buying WLS subscriptions
would have been made public.

Having known people who have been stalked as a result of DNS/whois 
information, and having myself received mountains of whois derived e-mail, 
fax, and phone spam, I do not believe that there is even a close balance 
of equities on the social contract that you suggest.

DNS/Whois is a holdover from the days of the net when we all knew one
another (and we would all fit into one meeting room in Pacific Grove,
California.)  The DNS/whois of today is a violation of all privacy
principles that have evolved over the last three decades.

		--karl--


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