Whois software run by Lacnic and BR?

Tue Oct 21 15:10:46 UTC 2003

Mark Prior <mrp at mrp.net> wrote:

[...]

>>> The whois server at the .BR registry (also the NIR for Brazil) doesn't
>>> provide country information because it's implicit as it only provide
>>> information for Brazil.
>>   Implicit is fine for humans but for automated scripts, couldn't it 
>>be  made to have country=BR for all your inetnum entries?
>
>When I was running a whois server we discovered that not all local 
>people appeared to want to use a local address. Some of them had head 
>offices used for billing, and the like, that was in a different country 
>so having the country code was useful even for humans.

So how should whois users understand country information in the 
database?

Should they interpret it as "my network is located in this country"? 
Alternatively, should they interpret it as "our corporate offices are in 
this country"? Increasingly, there is a discontinuity between the two as 
international corporations run networks in many countries from an HQ in 
just one.

If people updating the information in whois have different ideas about 
its meaning then users of whois its value might be lower than expected.

Regards,

-- 
leo vegoda
RIPE NCC
Registration Services Manager