RE: [ISOCNZ-Members] Draft WHOIS Policy
ISOCNZ technical committee, Thanks very much for the opportunity to comment (and hopefully influence) the Zone transfer and Whois policies, *before having the council vote on them.* DRAFT ZONE TRANSFER POLICY (http://www.isocnz.org.nz/zfdraft1099.html) ========================================================== Great to see that "No reasonable request shall be refused." A/ In item 3. it explicitly lists "simply for the gathering of statistical analysis" as being undesirable. Surely we can remove this phrase. The no spam bit I endorse but no statistics is a bit closed shop isn't it.? B/ In item 3 it provides for 'private name' servers. What is the objection to (shadow) public but non authoritative name servers. Surely these are OK in an open environment.? An ISP may want to improve response times for it's customers and help unload the official authoritative name servers, this would help robustness with perhaps a greater diversity of machines and operators. If it is OK for Auckland University then why not an ISP? DRAFT WHOIS POLICY (http://www.isocnz.org.nz/whoisdraft1099.html) ==================================================== Starts off well pointing out the expectation that "It is used generally by system administrators." A/ Surely to be useful for an ISP administrator, the ISP needs to be able to be sure that it is the current authoritative contents of the official database but instead we have "NZIRL does not guarantee its accuracy". Also I do not believe that ISOCNZ policy should include a disclaimer on behalf of NZIRL, I think people need to be clear which hat is being worn when they write this. B/ Surely to be useful to ISP administrators, one of the major differences in using a Whois instead of a web page is that it *CAN* be used for efficient automated definitive lookups etc. Why specifically ""under no circumstances will you use this Data to ...enable high volume, automated, electronic processes ", I thought that was largely what the objective was. OVERALL ========= If we make the above changes (open statistics gathering, open shadow name servers, accuracy of whois with efficient automation) we might allow for ISP's wanting to provide equivalent or alternative services to the registry in an efficient manor, without them it looks very centralist. Cheers David Harpham david(a)harpham.co.nz --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog
Hi David. Thanks for your email and the points raised. I will brings these up with the Technical Committee when we meet. At 03:04 PM 16-10-99 +1300, David Harpham wrote:
DRAFT ZONE TRANSFER POLICY A/ In item 3. it explicitly lists "simply for the gathering of statistical analysis" as being undesirable. Surely we can remove this phrase. The no spam bit I endorse but no statistics is a bit closed shop isn't it.?
The intention, as I understand it, is to ensure that Zone Transfers can be done for legitimate purposes. Zone Transfers are not a method for collecting statistics. If there is a general need for statistics I would suggest we look at a way for that we can create these and thereby make them available to everyone from a WEB page in such a manner as not to compromise the Privacy Act.
B/ In item 3 it provides for 'private name' servers. What is the objection to (shadow) public but non authoritative name servers. Surely these are OK in an open environment.? An ISP may want to improve response times for it's customers and help unload the official authoritative name servers, this would help robustness with perhaps a greater diversity of machines and operators. If it is OK for Auckland University then why not an ISP?
The policy would not restrict this. For a large ISP this may be quite practical and therefore I see no reason why this would not be allowed.
DRAFT WHOIS POLICY
A/ Surely to be useful for an ISP administrator, the ISP needs to be able to be sure that it is the current authoritative contents of the official database but instead we have "NZIRL does not guarantee its accuracy". Also I do not believe that ISOCNZ policy should include a disclaimer on behalf of NZIRL, I think people need to be clear which hat is being worn when they write this.
Good point.
B/ Surely to be useful to ISP administrators, one of the major differences in using a Whois instead of a web page is that it *CAN* be used for efficient automated definitive lookups etc. Why specifically ""under no circumstances will you use this Data to ...enable high volume, automated, electronic processes ", I thought that was largely what the objective was.
No it is not. A WHOIS is simply the standard method of getting the data from the NS. A WEB page is an alternative that suits the public better. A WHOIS however makes it easier for a system administrator to be able to interface with something to get important information, especially when something goes wrong somewhere and say the Technical contact for a Domain is needed. It is also a consistent interface. WHOIS is not meant for doing high volume downloads... that is what we have Zone Transfer ability for. Once again, thanks for your commends David. Regards John -- John Vorstermans || We are what we repeatedly do. Technical Manager || - Aristotle Actrix Networks --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog
participants (2)
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David Harpham -
John Vorstermans