[db-wg] [anti-abuse-wg] abuse-c + org

Dear Denis,

I think I did not make my concerns clear enough. While I'm not thrilled
by the current aspect of abuse-c (esp. content limitations w.r.t. IRT)
it is the current policy and I accept to live with that.

What I was trying to point out is that the current implementation does
not implement the policy correctly as it does not *allow* to attach an
abuse-c to an inet[6]num or aut-num. The indirection via the
ORGANISATION is fine and efficient, but constraining.

My use case is to set a specific abuse-c for one autnum and inetnum,
which is not the same as the general abuse-c of the organisation. Maybe
I could create a 'fake' ORG in order to link to that (probably it would
not work in my case), but that means data duplication. Allowing to
attach the abuse-c to whatever object would solve it more nicely. The
DBs query logic should hardly be affected as it is simply a matter of
returning the most specific abuse-c for the object.

> In the RIPE Labs article 
> https://labs.ripe.net/Members/kranjbar/implementation-details-of-policy-2011-06
>
> 
we pointed out that there are about 3.7 million Internet resource
> objects in the RIPE Database. To add an "abuse-c:" attribute
> physically to each of these objects is unmanageable. Every users
> network is physically linked to their existing ORGANISATION object.
> Each user only needs to add one "abuse-c:" attribute in their
> ORGANISATION object and all their networks are covered.

Fully agree - it's probably the most efficient way to do it, but I see
no reason for it to be the only one.

> When any address is queried in the RIPE Database, the software will
> find the related "abuse-c:" reference and return this information as
> part of the query. By returning this information as a default with
> each query we have satisfied the policy requirement that the
> "abuse-c:" is "included in inetnum, inet6num and aut-num objects".

Well, the policy is met in so far that all queries do return an abuse-c.
However if I, the resource holder, can not chose accurately which one
should be displayed the aim of the policy (having a good abuse-c) is missed.

(and to be honest, returning real data in the 'comment' section of the
result gives me the shivers)

> This implementation was presented to and discussed by the community
> on the Anti Abuse Working Group mailing list last year and Brian
> declared that a consensus had been reached in his email on December
> 5, on behalf of the co-chairs of the DB and AA Working Groups: 
> http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/anti-abuse-wg/2012-December/001993.html

I've
> 
read that at the time (maybe not carefully enough) but is was never
clear to me that the reference via the ORG object was the only way - I
understood it as a complement to the obvious possibility of adding the
contact to any object.


> The old RIPE Database reference manuals on the ripe.net web site
> still refer to the use of "abuse-mailbox:" attributes in other object
> types, but don't refer to "abuse-c:" at all. These attributes were
> never allowed to be added directly to the resource objects even in
> the legacy software. These old reference manuals are now out of date
> in many respects and should perhaps be clearly marked as archived
> documents.

By all means, please do so. There is nothing more confusion that
slightly wrong documentation. Obviously an up to date documentation
would be most welcome :) - at least a rough description of the objects
with their fields (and the optional/mandatory nature of them).

Best regards,
Gilles

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