[Community-Discuss] Questions

[Nishal Goburdhan]

On 24 Dec 2020, at 14:25, Ish Sookun wrote:


> Instead, I see you are arguing with a Board Director who is only 

> telling

> you that AFRINIC has a regulatory constraint in giving you access to

> data it possesses.


this is not quite a regulatory constraint.  this information is, or was, 
already in the public domain.  and so this is not *private* per se.  
however, as SM pointed out, the current afrinic *whois-db policy* 
constraint, is not to make the history of deleted objects available.  
that’s an entirely different problem.

the OP wanted historic information that _would not be available via any 
other means_, to [every|any]one else.  supplying this to one party 
without a legal writ, would put afrinic in an indefensible position.  
however, making that historic information available, via something like 
a WHOWAS service [1], is not illegal.  and if the historic data is made 
available, then a historic-bulk-whois-request-form can be created, 
satisfying the original request.  or, y’know, script queries :-)

making this historic data available, is not difficult [2].  it is just 
that the *current* db policy does not permit it.

-n.

[1]  https://www.apnic.net/static/whowas-ui/
[2]  https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/dbwg/2020-December/000286.html