Is WHOIS going to go away?

Fri Apr 20 21:04:04 UTC 2018

> "Wrong on several counts.  You can publicly access the records of who
owns every radio station, television station, and newspaper in the US and a
lot of other countries. "

You can't access their *sources* without a warrant.

You seem to be conflating private individuals with corporations.

> "No one ever had the liberty of publishing information to the public
without accountability."

That's provably false.  I can type whatever I want, hit print, and scatter
it around town unobserved at 3 AM.

> "The whole protecting you from the government point is nothing but a
straw man."

That's not what I'm advocating.  If whois disappeared entirely tomorrow, it
wouldn't protect me from government.  But it *would* protect me from crazy
nutjobs.

> "Do you really believe that ICANN will stand up to the world governments
if they ask for the data?"

Obviously not.  But there's nothing I can do about it except tell them to
come back with a warrant.

There *is* something I can do to help limit the ability of crazy nutjobs to
find out my information so they can visit my home and harass my family.

Anyways, I think this has rambled on long enough.

-A

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 1:55 PM Naslund, Steve <SNaslund at medline.com> wrote:

>
> >...in every other form of communication, the phrase "get a warrant" comes
> to mind.
> >Except on the internet where we require the information to be public so
> that anyone and their dog can view it without a warrant.
>
> Wrong on several counts.  You can publicly access the records of who owns
> every radio station, television station, and newspaper in the US and a lot
> of other countries.  All of those organizations are REQUIRED by law to file
> ownership statements. Every periodical published in the United States has a
> block in it identifying the publisher.  Every book sold has a publisher
> listed even if the author chooses to remain anonymous.  It is a violation
> of the law for a telemarketer to call you without identifying themselves
> (which is what we complain about with phone scammers).
>
> Get a warrant only applies to communications (like your phone calls and
> your personal Internet traffic) that have a reasonable expectation of
> privacy.  If you are in the public square shouting to the world you have no
> expectation of anonymity and you can actually be held responsible for false
> statements about another individual.  A publicly accessible website’s
> published pages would not have any expectation of privacy whatsoever.
> Besides we are talking about identification of ownership of a
> communications site not the communications going through it.  Just because
> I have your WHOIS data does not mean I have root access to your server.
>  The government needs a warrant to listen to your phone calls but not to
> know you have a phone and where it is.   We are not letting people monitor
> your traffic through WHOIS, we are only identifying who is responsible for
> all communications coming from that site.
>
> Another point is that “get a warrant” does not apply in totalitarian
> countries in any case.  Try saying get a warrant in North Korean or China.
> Pretty moot point there.
>
>
> "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
> Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
>
> No one ever had the liberty of publishing information to the public
> without accountability.  There are tons of laws protecting you from false
> statements and communications intended to harm your reputation or damage
> your business.
>
> You are giving up an essential liberty here which is knowing who is saying
> what about you.  Do you not want the right to know the sources of
> information presented to the public?  Do you think I should be able to post
> anything I want about you in the public square without accountability?  Can
> I put up a billboard criticizing you personally and keep my identity a
> complete secret?  Might it be nice to know that the source of political
> news might have an axe to grind or an ideological bent, would you like to
> know that the news story you just read was actually from an opposition
> candidate?  Are we not making a huge deal about Russia messing around with
> elections and trolling?  How would you ever know that was going on with no
> accountability of the source of information?
>
> The whole protecting you from the government point is nothing but a straw
> man.  There is no nation state that does not have enough resources to
> recover that information from you or your communications carrier.  Even if
> your traffic is encrypted, it is trivial to figure out who is posting to
> social media or underground websites via other intelligence or simple
> traffic analysis.  They can deny their entire populations access to just
> about any communications media they like.  Most of them don’t because it is
> actually a more lucrative source of intelligence than a threat.  If you are
> a dissident I might be better off leaving you on the Internet and trying to
> map your network of people even though it would be easy to just interrupt
> your comms.
>
> From a technical perspective, the domain naming system and Internet
> addressing system are assets you do not own.  They are assigned to you and
> are considered a type of resource under quasi governmental control.  If you
> keep WHOIS data secret all you are really doing is keeping the public out
> and the government in.  Do you really believe that ICANN will stand up to
> the world governments if they ask for the data?   If so, you probably also
> believe that the UN is effective at keeping the world at peace.
>
> Steven Naslund
> Chicago IL
>
>