RE: [ga] whois: issues with uniformity

["J-F C. (Jefsey) Morfin" <jefsey@club-internet.fr>]

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: owner-ga-full@dnso.org [mailto:owner-ga-full@dnso.org] On Behalf
>Of Stephane Bortzmeyer
>Sent: 27 December 2002 12:34
>To: Vittorio Bertola
>Cc: Stephane Bortzmeyer; ga@dnso.org
>Subject: Re: [ga] whois: issues with uniformity
>
>
>On Fri, Dec 27, 2002 at 10:44:44AM +0100,
>  Vittorio Bertola <vb@bertola.eu.org> 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 hotsex@coldmail.com. You want to
>complain to the people at coldmail.com. It is very convenient to find an
>email address.
>
>Or the email to myfriend@somewhere.bj 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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