Is WHOIS going to go away?

Wed Apr 25 13:18:39 UTC 2018

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 07:31:20PM +0000, Naslund, Steve wrote:
> I don't see why there should not be a way to know who is publishing data on the Internet. 

+1 for this and what follows.  Allow me, please, to piggyback on it
with a similar thought:

With great power, comes great responsibility.

There is no difference between someone who runs a global network or
a worldwide collection of datacenters, and someone who runs a tiny
web server or a single domain, other than scale.  Both of them enjoy
extraordinary power, power that was difficult to imagine even for
people with reliable and accurate crystal balls, a quarter century ago.
They both operate a piece of the Internet that we share.

And they are both responsible to each other -- whatever that means
in context.  They have to be accountable, because when people are
unaccountable we get spam factories and network hijacking and DoS
attacks and all the other myriad crap that chews up enormous amounts
of time and money.

This responsibility, this accountability isn't for everyone.  And that's
fine.  But anyone who isn't up for it *should not sign up to operate a
piece of the Internet*.  There are a zillion other ways to participate
without becoming an operator.

---rsk