[governance] Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] ICANN/ITU "legitimacy"

[McTim]

On Apr 11, 2005 7:54 AM, Milton Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

> 
> Whois access to personal contact data did not get created because of
> any alleged obligations of "producers" - it came into being by accident,

I believe there was an actual purpose behind it. the WHOIS protocol
applies to Internet Protocol resources as well as domain registration.

Public Network Infromation DBs were created so that network operators
could contact other network operators in case of trouble (outage) or
abuse.

On the domain registry side, WHOIS allows domain registrants to be
contactable in case of outage or abuse. This is the point of WHOIS. It
wasn't an accident.  You can't blame the techies for the explosive
popularity of Internetworking.

> telephone company is. It's crazy. You can get an unlisted phone number
> for your home. Why can't you get a domain name for home use without
> publishing your private contact data?

Well, you can, you just have to lie ;-)

Seriously though, in terms of RIR WHOIS there is some work going on in
The ARIN, RIPE and APNIC regions that would allow different levels of
personal data to be visible in WHOIS.

As I said above though, what happens if I get a flood of SPAM from
user at domain?  How can I alert the domain holder or his/her network
operator that one of their boxes is "owned" by a spammer.  "owned" in
this case could be actual physical ownership/Trojaned/whatever.

The CRISP protocol  (next generation of WHOIS)  also will allow for
greater privacy flexibilty.  That work is ongoing as well.

(snip)

> Turn this around, and you will understand better what the real whois
> debate is about. WHOIS as currently structured requires a domain name
> registrant to provide their home telephone number and address to ANY
> anonymous user of the Internet. When your whois record is viewed, there
> is no record, you don't know who did it, what the reason for viewing it
> was, or what they are going to do with it. Isn't it illogical for you to
> attack anonymous expression, while supporting anonymous and wholesale
> access to private contact data? If anonymous speech can be abused, can't
> anonymous access to personal contact data?

Of course, and it is, no argument there!

> 
> And have you forgotten that there are ample mechanisms for acquiring
> information about Internet users for legitimate law enforcement purposes
> without making that information available to every spammer, identity
> thief, stalker, information harvester or curious person in the world?

Is there an ample mechanism for network operators to contact others in
case of abuse or trouble?  Certainly, it is called WHOIS!

Does the public benefit outweigh the possible downside to publication.
 IMHO, it probably does.


Cheers,

McTim

nic-hdl:      TMCG