[159219] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: GeekTools Whois Proxy and RIPE/RIPE-NCC
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Erik Bais)
Mon Dec 31 14:48:52 2012
In-Reply-To: <71BEAB45-2AC4-4573-BF20-35B6BAB1B119@centergate.com>
From: Erik Bais <ebais@a2b-internet.com>
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2012 20:48:47 +0100
To: Rodney Joffe <rjoffe@centergate.com>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Hi Rodney,
Would support from a RIPE LIR be sufficient to keep the service up ?=20
I'm pretty sure there isn't a requirement to register for a LIR membership i=
f this is the only usage.=20
As a RIPE LIR, we can have a look at what the options are if that would help=
.=20
Have a good new year,
Regards,
Erik Bais
A2B Internet=20
Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPad
Op 31 dec. 2012 om 16:41 heeft Rodney Joffe <rjoffe@centergate.com> het volg=
ende geschreven:
> NANOG and ARIN Friends,
>=20
> 14 Years ago, at the suggestion of Jon Postel and some of the early partic=
ipants in NANOG, we developed the GeekTools Whois proxy to make it easier fo=
r *us* - network security and abuse techs - to deal with the expanding numbe=
r of gtlds and registrars and the varied whois servers that were appearing. T=
he service had both a CLI and web interface.
>=20
> The service also led directly to the creation of whois-servers.net, which n=
ow seems to be part of a number of *nix distributions.
>=20
> The service has been up for 14 years, and over that time we have fulfilled=
the requirements of all of the whois server operators in regards to minimiz=
ing and stopping abuse of the GT whois proxy by domain scrapers, spammers, e=
tc, while enabling the security folks to do their jobs. In some cases we hav=
e even written code to pass the ip address of the requestor to the whois ser=
ver registry operator when they wanted to manage quota's directly. We think w=
e have a really good relationship with all of the whois server operators, an=
d I think we provide a useful service to the community, and is widely used. A=
nd in 14 years we have never been tarred as an enabler of abuse of "the whoi=
s" system.
>=20
> There has obviously never been any kind of charge or fee for using the pro=
xy, or any of the other tools on GeekTools. In about 2002 we started placing=
a banner ad on the web interface page to offset some of the costs for the b=
andwidth that the proxy consumes. An average of about $70 a month for over t=
he last 10 years. Actual bandwidth costs are higher than that of course, but=
it was a thought in 2002 that we had frankly forgotten about until recently=
.
>=20
> Two weeks ago RIPE-NCC, who provide the whois data for IP addresses in the=
RIPE region, informed us that based on decisions by their members, as of Ja=
nuary 1st 2013, tomorrow, they would no longer provide whois proxy query res=
ponse services to GeekTools unless we ponied up $1,800 a year for RIPE membe=
rship.
>=20
> I don't work very well above layer 7. It is what it is. So I wanted to let=
you know that as of midnight tonight, apparently, you won't be able to use G=
eekTools for RIPE related queries. If you have automated scripts, and you ar=
e one of the users who has expanded access to GeekTools, you'll need to find=
an alternative for RIPE queries *today*. My guess is that you will be able t=
o query RIPE directly, once you have worked out that the address space is wi=
thin RIPE's assignments.
>=20
> I think its wrong to have to pay for whois data that is part of a communit=
y resource . So I won't do it.
