Summary of the proposal:

This is a proposal to introduce a new (mandatory) contact attribute
named "abuse-c:", which can be referenced by inetnum, inet6num and
aut-num objects.

It provides a more efficient way for maintainers to organize their
provided information and helps to increase accuracy and efficiency in
routing abuse reports to the correct network contact. In addition to
that, it helps all kinds of institutions (legal, law enforcers,
reporting organizations and much more) to find the correct abuse contact
information more easily.


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Summary of the current problem:

Network owners increasingly operate dedicated abuse handling
departments, distinct from the basic operations department.

More and more network owners and other institutions are also starting to
exchange data about abusive behavior with each other, to more quickly
allow networks to identify internal abuse, external abuse, and other
security problems.

Currently within the RIPE region, it is a problem for network operators
to determine the best place to publish abuse contact information (irt,
"abuse-mailbox:", "remark-fields:", and in addition to that, in which
object they should publish them).
As a consequence, it is a huge problem for all kinds of institutions
(legal, law enforcement, reporting organization and others) to find the
correct abuse contact in the variety of possibilities.


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Situation in other RIRs

AfriNIC:
Policy Proposal AFPUB-2010-GEN-006 is awaiting implementation.
http://www.afrinic.net/docs/policies/AFPUB-2010-GEN-006-draft-02.htm

APNIC
Policy Proposal "prop-079: Abuse contact information" was implemented in
November 2010.
http://www.apnic.net/policy/proposals/prop-079

ARIN:
An abuse-POC exists for Organisational ID identifiers.
https://www.arin.net/knowledge/database.html#abusepoc
ARIN decided to make abuse-c mandatory.
https://www.arin.net/announcements/2011/20110718.html

LACNIC:
An "abuse-c:" exists for aut-num, inetnum and inet6num objects.
http://lacnic.net/en/politicas/manual4.html


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Policy Text

This is a proposal to introduce a new (mandatory) contact attribute
named "abuse-c:", which can be referenced by inetnum, inet6num and
aut-num objects. The "abuse-c:" reference to an abuse handler should
make use of the hierarchical nature of the resource data to minimize the
workload on resource holders and facilitate good database design.

The role should contain the following attributes:

...
address:       [mandatory]
phone:         [optional]
fax-no:        [optional]
e-mail:        [mandatory] [single]
abuse-mailbox: [mandatory] [single]
...

The difference between "e-mail:" and abuse-mailbox:" is in the usage of
both. "abuse-mailbox:" is intended for receiving automatic and manual
reports about abusive behavior originating the resource holders
networks, while the "e-mail:" attribute shall be used for private
conversations between the resources holder(s teams) and external persons
or institutions.


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Query options:

...

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Upcoming Cleanup process:

...
renaming of mnt-irt into irt-c
creation of abuse abuse-mailbox in specific fields will not be possible any longer.
deletion or moving of old and misplaced abuse-mailbox attributes.
possibilities of handling remark fields.
...