Suggestion: Add contact entry to whois

Fri Mar 5 01:30:15 UTC 1999

On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, Owen DeLong wrote:

> Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 08:55:12 -0800
> From: Owen DeLong <owen at dixon.DeLong.SJ.CA.US>
> To: hostmaster at internic.net
> Cc: nanog at nanog.org
> Subject: Suggestion:  Add contact entry to whois
> 
> 
> We already have Admin, Tech, and Billing.  Would it be possible to consider
> the addition of an Abuse contact in whois?

It's a decent-enough idea... but, really, the "tech" contact should be a
good start... or, hell, take a guess at the web page for the company,
maybe do some surfing and try to determine if the company in-question
really has better contact info there for you -- many already do.  Then
again, WHAT do you mean by "abuse?"  Chances are, for a large enough
company, I'm probably going to be contacting some sort of helpdesk for
pretty much anything whereas others might differentiate between security
related attacks, simple spam, or other networking problems...

Also, why put the burden on NetSol to maintain this sort of data for 
everyone?  I mean, they STILL have to get each domain to give them that
info at some point (what's to actually persuade someone to do it or,
for that matter, make it any more "valid" than any other info that's
already out there? (eg. how many clueless "tech" contacts are already
out there when, by definition, these people are <supposed> to be
technically competent?))

IMO, the burden for this really should lie on the domain registrant and
owner.  Perhaps an "abuse" address should be just as ubiquitous as the
accepted "postmaster" address (though still not everyone enforces that
or even reads mail to their postmaster accounts).

Don't get me wrong... I think this is a problem that needs to be somehow
addressed, but I don't necessarily think "whois" is the place for it.

Regards,
Russell

-- 
Russell M. Van Tassell
russell at cscorp.com