[anti-abuse-wg] Abuse Contact Information - Policy Proposal

Florian Weimer wrote:
> * Tobias Knecht:
>
>   
>> 4.1 Institute a mandatory reference to an IRT object in inetnum, 
>>     inet6num and aut-num objects.
>>     
>
> So it seems to me that one particular problem is that the
> abuse-mailbox data is not available in the bulk database dumps,
> and neither are the IRT objects.
>
> Wouldn't it be easier if RIPE created person/role object dumps,
> containing only the nic-hdl and the abuse-mailbox field?  IRT object
> dumps would make a lot of sense, too.
>
> Historically, IRT objects had significant organizational overhead and
> have been subject to politics, so I'm not sure if they are the proper
> answer.
>
>   

Dear Florian Weimer

Bulk access is always problematic where personal data is involved. You
are correct that we do not provide dump files for PERSON and ROLE
objects or for MNTNER objects which also have the possibility for
"abuse-mailbox:" attributes.

Within the next week or so we will be putting a new release of the
software into production that creates these dump files. In this we have
had to extend the restriction of bulk data access by removing NIC Handle
references. This is because NIC Handles are regarded as personal data in
Dutch law. So we would not be able to create a file as you suggested.
But we will provide the dump file for IRT objects.

It should also be remembered that IRT objects were introduced for a
specific purpose that required additional administrative overhead. That
purpose is still valid today and some of that overhead still applies to
these objects.

But it is not all bad news. We have an Abuse Finder Tool. This is still
in a pre-production phase and is described on RIPE Labs:
http://labs.ripe.net/content/updated-heuristics-abuse-finder-service

This service will find "abuse-mailbox:" attributes and related IRT
objects and "remarks:" attributes that 'look like' they contain a
reference to an abuse handler for any specified Internet resource. This
service currently works for RIPE and APNIC resources. To a limited
extent it also works with AfriNIC's data, but they don't use IRT objects
or "abuse-mailbox:" so it can only look for "remarks:".

This service does not return any personal data other than abuse
contacts. Therefore it is not subject to any access control limits. The
tool provides 'on demand' access to abuse contacts as many times as you
wish. This reduces, or in many cases eliminates, the need for access to
bulk data.

Regards
Denis Walker
Business Analyst
RIPE NCC Database Group