misleading use of the connect: field in inetnum: object

>   > So now I've got another concern: populating the RR helps the
>   > "afficionados", but probably doesn't help the (end-)user in finding
>   > out what he/she can expect. I'd assume people are still thinking in
>   > terms of NORDUnet, NSF, RIPE and not in terms of ASxxx and ASyyy.
> 
> Of course you can look up what ASxxx and ASyyy are in the very same
> database.  And find NORDUnet, ACOnet etc.  Maybe we should include that
> info in the recursive lookup information?  It can only be one AS per net
> so it will not be too bad. 

But that will not give you the same functionality, and at an increase in
both "processing load" and "information load" for the user.  I agree that
the "connect" field is a kludge not usable for any automated use, but I
*do* find it useful as simply a commentary field indicating the intended
connectivity.  And as long as the NSFnet autonomous system is not in the
European routing registry (it isn't, right?), you will not be able to
represent the effect of "connect: NSF" with the routing registry.

If we were to use the method Daniel hints at to obtain the same (or
corresponding) information, you would have to trace the use of an
autonomous system number in all the "as-out" and "as-in" fields for the
autonomous systems between "here" and "there" to see if there is any
intended connectivity.  And since you have to have two-way traffic to
communicate, you'd have to trace back again (possibly looking at default
routes...)  I therefore conclude that calculating the equivalent of the
"connect" field dynamically on every "whois" lookup for a given network
will probably be too expensive (besides, "there" is not well-defined in
such a query...:-).

I also concur with Wilfried that people still think in terms of NORDUnet,
NSFnet, RIPE (?), EBONE, the GIX etc., and personally I see nothing wrong
with that.  So my personal opinion on the matter at hand is not to delete
the "connect" field altogether (or maim it to be essentialy useless by only
allowing LOCAL as a legal value (did I mis-quote that?)), but rather
redefine it to be "intended region-wise connectivity".  This could be done
by possibly dropping the RIPE and NORDU attributes (RIPE has no routers and
NORDU is more or less equivalent to EBONE these days, connectivity-wise,
and besides NORDUnet isn't a large enough region in these matters, IMHO)
and instead add EBONE, GIX (and possibly CIX?), and keep EU (?), NSF and of
course LOCAL.  Please note that this is expression of intent, but it should
of course be kept reasonably in sync with reality, eg. by following the
routine I do :-) as described in my previous message.

Also: please note that I fully support the work behind RIPE-81, the PRIDE
project and the population of the routing registry database.  However, the
"connect" field is hardly a substitute for any of that work (or vice versa).


Hope you don't get sick of my nagging :-),

- Havard