Is WHOIS going to go away?

Fri Apr 20 19:31:20 UTC 2018

I don't see why there should not be a way to know who is publishing data on the Internet.  In almost all other forms of communication, there is some accountability for the origination of information.  Newspaper publishers are known, radio stations are usually licensed and publicly known, television is licensed as well.  Your phone and Internet traffic is available to the government and law enforcement.  People need to be held legally accountable for the information they present to the public otherwise you would have absolutely no recourse in the event that you were slandered, scammed, or otherwise harmed by this information.  People being scared of their government is a real thing, however it is not up to the Internet to protect people from their own governments, that is a political problem not a technical one.  Always think of the negative side of the argument.  If a website was distributing unauthorized compromising photos of your children would you want them to be completely anonymous? 

Think of how aggravated we all are with the spam we receive every day and how much you like spoofed caller ID data when you talk about anonymity.	

Publishing information for access by the entire public should have some sort of accountability with it.

When you get into the business of "protecting" people from their own "oppressive" governments, you are also protecting "enemies and criminals" from another perspective.  Most all nation states would have the ability to track the communications to their source in any case so all you are really doing is protecting the data from the public.

It would appear to me that the ICANN proposal is nothing more than a means to monetize what used to be public data.  Why should Google have all the fun?

Steven Naslund
Chicago IL

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces at nanog.org] On Behalf Of bzs at theworld.com
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2018 2:11 PM
To: Tei
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Is WHOIS going to go away?

On April 20, 2018 at 12:03 oscar.vives at gmail.com (Tei) wrote:
 > Maybe a good balance for whois is to include organization information
 > so I know where a website is hosted, but not personal information, so
 > I can't show in their house and steal their dog.
 > 
 > I feel uneasy about having my phone available to literally everyone on
 > the internet.

There are various privacy options available when one registers a
domain, generally a matter of checking a box and usually free.

 > 
 > 
 > -- 
 > --
 > ℱin del ℳensaje.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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