[AfriNIC-rpd] abuse contact information in whois database (AFPUB-2010-GEN-002)

[Leo Vegoda]

On Jun 16, 2010, at 7:20 PM, Tobias Knecht wrote:

>>> Okay look at it that way. If AfriNIC would offer a service, where
>>> I could put in a ip address and get back the abuse contact e-mail
>>> address, why should I start doing painful and really ugly whois
>>> queries to send this stuff to more than the mentioned receiver?
>> 
>> I think this idea has potential and is worth exploring further. It is
>> quite different from the current proposal, though.
> 
> That would be the next step after having the dedicated abuse contact
> information. ;-)

To be clear, the IRT object is much more than just where to e-mail your abuse report. Here is the template:

irt:            [mandatory]  [single]     [primary/look-up key]
address:        [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]
phone:          [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
fax-no:         [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
e-mail:         [mandatory]  [multiple]   [lookup key]
abuse-mailbox:  [optional]   [multiple]   [inverse key]
signature:      [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
encryption:     [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
org:            [optional]   [multiple]   [inverse key]
admin-c:        [mandatory]  [multiple]   [inverse key]
tech-c:         [mandatory]  [multiple]   [inverse key]
auth:           [mandatory]  [multiple]   [inverse key]
remarks:        [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
irt-nfy:        [optional]   [multiple]   [inverse key]
notify:         [optional]   [multiple]   [inverse key]
mnt-by:         [mandatory]  [multiple]   [inverse key]
changed:        [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]
source:         [mandatory]  [single]     [ ]

Because an IRT object has so much extra information in it it needs to be carefully parsed before the information can be used. Your new proposal for a far simpler protocol would not require that extra data and so would not require an IRT object. For instance:

   QUERY: 192.0.2.18
RESPONSE: abuse at example.net

You don't need to extract the e-mail address from the object in the response. Instead, you just make sure that it is a valid address. Far simpler.

I suspect the problem here is not the complexity of the protocol but in getting agreement from all the relevant IRs to implement it.

Regards,

Leo Vegoda