[db-wg] Proposal: Abuse-C as a Reference

On Fri, 2004-05-07 at 11:33, MarcoH wrote:
> On Thu, May 06, 2004 at 05:18:49PM +0200, Jeroen Massar wrote:
> 
> > That is very good to hear as that is I think the main issue that some
> > people where talking about.
> > 
> > Can someone sum up the issues that are left with IRT's?
> > 
> 
> There is not a problem with IRT, it's with the whole database. The problem
> which we are fighting here is that any ip lookup with the ripe database
> returns multiple attributes called e-mail and multiple other attributes
> containing an email address.

The RIPE registry is a 'registration database' where a lot of
information, eg contacts are stored in. Not only abuse contacts.

> Operational experience shows that most users aren't able to figure out
> which address to use when complaining so they just use all.

<SNIP>

> We just need a better representation of the data so people can easily find
> the correct address, without having to read the database specs. 

That is not a problem of the database but of the usage of the database.

Which results in a couple of 'solutions' which pop in my head:
 - Never show e-mail addresses
     * but that is completely bogus, why even have a database then
 - Per default not show any email addresses, unless explictly queried.
     * breaks a lot of existing software
 - Have a special *frontend* that filters this
     * users can go to http://www.example.net/findabusecontact/
        Database gets queried, done.
     * Tools need to use this.

The last option is the way to go, adding new objects doesn't do
anything. The database is fine. The users are not.
For example it would be the same as re-modeling google because the users
need to do their own SQL (or whatever they use) queries on the database.
The frontend needs to be fixed, not the database.

Greets,
 Jeroen

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