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Maybe UCANN school ICANN on whois (Linux Journal)
Doc Searls
covers
an ICANN debate on the future of the whois command, the comment period
closes at the end of October.
"Raise your hand if you use whois every day. Even if your hand isn't up, and you just regard whois as am essential sysadmin tool, this post is for you.
Because if you're interested in keeping whois working for the those it was made for in the first place, you need to visit the battlefield where whois' future is being determined right now. That is, you must be Beowulf to the Grendel that is the Intellectual Property Community. Worse, you must confront him in the vast cave that is ICANN."
(Log in to post comments)
Summary Posted Oct 25, 2007 16:56 UTC (Thu) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] The ICANN is considering rule changes to what information is published in the whois database regarding domain-name owners. Privacy advocates, including Doc Searls, would like whois to publish only an "operational point of contact" (OPoC): an administrative contact in case of technical problems, while hiding the address and other sensitive information about the actual owner of the domain. Companies who are interested in enforcing their trademarks (and, to some extent copyright enforcement, it looks like) would prefer that whois publish the name and address of the owner, or alternatively to impose some legal responsibility on the OPoC to relay communications to the owner in a timely fashion.
Summary Posted Oct 25, 2007 17:31 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Fortunately, we don't have DMCA for trademarks. Even if somebody alleges that my domain name is in violation of their trademark, I'm not required to surrender my domain before the court ruling. Surely, it's bad to be sued for having a domain name someone else wants to have, but that's a problem with the judicial system, not with whois.On the other hand, not having sufficient information about the domain may impede efforts to locate spammers and especially phishers. That needs to be done quickly to limit the damage.
Summary Posted Oct 25, 2007 18:10 UTC (Thu) by tetromino (subscriber, #33846) [Link] The funny thing is, the new rules won't do anything to stop domain-name squatters or phony whois data. I mean, what's stopping a small company in, say, Russia, from registering domain names on behalf of squatter clients? The Russian company would use its true contact info in the whois entry (and would tell anyone trying to use that contact info to go to hell), while the owners of the content pointed to by the domain name would remain anonymous.
Summary Posted Oct 28, 2007 17:23 UTC (Sun) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link] ...or in America, and register/host/whatever Caucasian pro-Islamic propaganda. It'd be so much politically correct, *yeah*. Anyways, trying to solve organization problems in technological plane is usually counter-productive.
Maybe UCANN school ICANN on whois (Linux Journal) Posted Oct 25, 2007 18:13 UTC (Thu) by markhb (guest, #1003) [Link] From the Doc Searls article:Motions 1 and 3, best as I can tell, call for minimal action.Best as I can tell, that is a complete misreading of the motions. Motion 1 is essentially to move ahead with the recommendations of the committee report to implement the "OPoC" change mentioned by the posters above. Motion 3, which is a fallback that "may" be withdrawn if Motion 1 succeeds, says the following: (i) That, with regret, the GNSO Council advises the ICANN staff and Board of Directors of the lack of general consensus on the key issues and solutions pertaining to gTLD WHOIS, and;(Emphasis added.) I'm not sure how much of the WHOIS contractual requirements are "not supported by consensus policy," but that certainly doesn't sound like "minimal action" to me. Motion 2 essentially directs the Council to direct its staff to come up with a proposal for further study within 90 days. That, to me, sounds like the most minimal action that a bureaucracy could possibly undertake. All quotes and descriptions drawn from pp. 9ff of the PDF linked by Doc Searls. IANAL, but to me, Doc Searls' reading of the document in this regard is grossly inaccurate. YMMV.
whois exposes the criminals Posted Oct 30, 2007 14:12 UTC (Tue) by stock (subscriber, #5849) [Link] Sure! whois exposes the criminals. Here's a couple examples :
"MOSSAD's control over the Internet" A perfect showcase why they want to get rid of certain whois information. Entire versions of the whois client have disappeared from mainstream Linux distros, because they showed to much information? I don't know. But Doc Searls sure has a funny timing in touching the whois subject.
Robert
whois exposes the criminals Posted Nov 1, 2007 12:35 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] Other readers: please note that the link in the PP's post is a hilariously funny mumbo-jumbo pseudo-tech rambling web page. The author has obviously no grasp at all on typical Internet backbone operation, but to make up for that he invents conspiracy stories that are on par with any Illuminati book. Or it may be that he means his stuff seriously; well then; another data point for the need of a KILL file feature at LWN.net. Joachim
whois exposes the criminals Posted Nov 1, 2007 13:38 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Stockmann? Oh, he takes his stuff seriously, all right. He's a (rather low volume) mailing list kook, now obviously also playing in these newfangled electric intertubes. It's reasonable to assume that everything he says is in some way twisted or inaccurate, even if it looks sane. (Often it's hilariously wrong.)
Maybe UCANN school ICANN on whois (Linux Journal) Posted Nov 8, 2007 3:14 UTC (Thu) by stock (subscriber, #5849) [Link] On Nov 1, 2007 13:38 UTC (Thu) nix (subscriber, #2304) posted the following :Stockmann? Oh, he takes his stuff seriously, all right. He's a (rather low volume) mailing list kook, now obviously also playing in these newfangled electric intertubes. It's reasonable to assume that everything he says is in some way twisted or inaccurate, even if it looks sane. (Often it's hilariously wrong.) Hello nix, My name is Robert M. Stockmann. Maybe you could reveal your true identity and in doing so also make a list of your "kooked" up charges against me in more specified detail. lwn.net is however not really the place for this, as it seems your keyboard is sweating blood. Cheers,
Robert
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