Test Traffic Measurement Service
Data Disclosure Policy

   Henk Uijterwaal
   RIPE NCC

   Document ID: ripe-300
   Date: 23 January 2004
   Obsoletes: ripe-180
     ____________________________________________________________________

1 Introduction

   This document describes the Data Disclosure Policy (also referred to as
   the acceptable use policy or AUP) for the the data collected by the RIPE
   NCC Test Traffic Measurement Service (TTM) [1]. It describes who can
   access the data from this service, what one can do with the data and
   conditions that must be fulfilled before data can be published outside
   the RIPE Test Traffic Working Group (TT-WG) and the organisations hosting
   the test boxes.

   This policy is based on discussion in the RIPE TT-WG. It replaces the old
   policy as described in [2]. Existing users of the service will be asked
   to confirm that they agree with this change in policy. New test boxes
   will only be installed if the hosts agree with this version of the
   policy.

2 General principles

   This policy is based on 2 principles:
     
     * Avoid abuse while giving as much freedom as possible to use the data.
     * A simple procedure that describes the basic idea and is easy to
       follow rather than a heavy document that attempts to describe every
       possible case.

   Collecting data with the test-boxes means collecting data about
   organisations and the performance of their networks. This is a delicate
   matter as nobody wants to see an analysis that puts the performance of
   his networks in a bad light, particularly if the scientific merits of the
   analysis cannot be proven. On the other hand, the results of TTM can be a
   valuable tool for day-to-day operations, long-term planning and
   scientific research. One does not want to be too restrictive about what
   can be done with the data.


   To implement these principles, 3 basic rules are set:
     
     * The RIPE NCC controls the distribution of the data.
     * All data analysis should be peer reviewed before publication.
     * All reports should include a pointer to the official description of
       the data as well as appropriate credit and copyright statements.

   These basic rules are discussed in the next sections for two cases:
   section 3 discusses the situation for the owners of a test-box and their
   customers, section 4 for all others. The latter category generally
   consists of researchers doing scientific analysis of the data in order to
   better understand the behaviour of the Internet.
   
3 Participating Organisations

   This section deals with organisations that own a Test Box and participate
   in the service, and their customers. Customers are loosely defined as any
   organization that uses the network of the test box host in order to
   connect to the rest of the Internet. There may or may not be a formal   
   business relation. Sites owning a Test Box are called ``test box hosts''
   in the remainder of this document,
   
1 Access to the data
   
   There are several ways in which a test box host can access the data:
    1. Through an interface on the test box. This shows the data as it is   
       being collected, with a delay of only a few minutes. Access to this
       interface is restricted to IP addresses specified by the test box
       host and allocated to the host or its customers. The host will make
       the customer aware of this policy.
    2. Through the RIPE NCC website. Processed data (plots, summaries) will
       be put on the RIPE NCC web site without password restrictions (but
       see section 4 below). Plots can be copied to another, internal web
       site if necessary, provided that proper credits are given and the
       test box host makes the users of that site aware of this policy.
    3. Through the RIPE NCC ftp-site. Unprocessed data will be put on an
       ftp-server on request. The U