[74389] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: APNIC Privacy of customer assignment records - implementation update
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Matthew Kaufman)
Thu Sep 23 18:55:16 2004
From: "Matthew Kaufman" <matthew@eeph.com>
To: "'Leo Bicknell'" <bicknell@ufp.org>, <nanog@merit.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 15:54:37 -0700
In-Reply-To: <20040923223559.GA89663@ussenterprise.ufp.org>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
The truth is, it doesn't even need to be a case of "grandma" listed in =
the
whois (though that is a legitimate issue these days). If as an ISP, I =
list
"Bob's Flower Market" (which has a DSL line and IP addresses for every =
cash
register and order-fulfillment machine) in whois, all that does is:
A) Cause "Bob's Flower Market" to get spam at the address harvested =
from
whois, and
B) Cause people who have issues with virus-infected machines to call =
Bob
(who doesn't know jack about viruses) instead of calling me (I can =
remotely
shut him off until I can drive over there with a CD full of anti-virus
software), and
C) Gives my competition Bob's name and phone number, so they can try =
to
sell him their DSL service instead. (Imagine the response if you asked =
any
other local business to post their complete customer list, with the =
names
and unlisted phone numbers of buyers, on the front door)
What it does NOT do is:
1) Reduce the amount of virus traffic accountable to Bob (might make =
it
worse, if people call him instead of me), or
2) Reduce the amount of spam in the world (probably increases it, at =
least
from Bob's point of view), or
3) Make the world a better place to live (there's much better avenues =
to
pursue if that's your goal)
Matthew Kaufman
matthew@eeph.com
