Re: [apnic-talk] Errors in the APNIC WHOIS data base
In message <0C65A1F4-A043-45F9-8AAD-E483BFA598EE@apnic.net>,
Vivek Nigam <vivek@apnic.net> wrote:
>APNIC implemented the organization object in June 2017. All organizations
>that joined APNIC after this date had their organization objects
>automatically created and associated with their resources. We reached
>out to our members who joined prior to this date and helped them make
>this update after confirming the contact details for their organization
object.
>
>All resources delegated to APNIC Members now have an organization object,
>except delegations made to NIR members and historical resources that are
>not managed under an APNIC account. We have work scheduled next year
>with the NIRs, however as per our policy, we can't update historical
>information in the APNIC Whois until the resource holder demonstrates
>the organization's right to the resources and enters a formal agreement
>with APNIC
I should begin by saying "thank you" to Vivek for this timely and detailed
reponse. It is certainly helpful to know the root causes of the issues
I have encountered in trying to make use of the APNIC WHOIS data base,
and why there is often an absence of an org: field for many top-level
IPv4 allocation inetnum: records.
That having been said, I'd just like to express my personal opinion, that
tying, via policy, the accuracy and/or completness of APNIC WHOIS records
to the completion of some yet-to-be-completed and perhaps still far-off
contractual arrangements is not in any sense a good policy choice.
Why should the correctness or completness of the WHOIS be held hostage to
the complex and perhaps lengthy process of bringing all allocation holders
into the fold, contractually speaking? I guess another way of phrasing
this same question might be "Is the WHOIS data base being viewed by some
within the APNIC community as either a carrot or a stick, to either
encourage or force some hold-out allocation holders to enter into
contracts with APNIC?" If so, then I would submit that this is both
nonsensical and counterproductive. The accurancy and completness of
APNIC WHOIS objects is too important... to an entire planet's worth of
users, myself included... to allow it to remain in a sub-optimal, degraded,
and aruguably inaccurate state just as a way of encouraging some parties
to formalize their direct relationship with APNIC.
In short, regardless of how desirable the goal is, I don't think that it
is a valid reason to deliberately leave the APNIC WHOIS data base in a
sub-optimal and problematic state for any extended period of time.
APNIC should look for some other and different ways of encouraging
resource holders to come to the table and enter into direct contractual
relationships with APNIC. In the meantime, the WHOIS data base should
be made as accurate as possible, reflecting current reality as it exists
on the ground.
>Information about resource holders are also published in the description
>attribute of parent inetnum objects.
This is not always true, and even where it is, the information is spotty
and difficult or impossible to parse in any automated fashion.
>By default the country attribute here represents the economy where the
>resource holder is legally registered, however in some cases the
>country value has been changed to reflect the location of their network.
Thanks. The country code that should be associated with each inetnum:
record is really the lesser of my concerns. The more troublesome problem
that I have been dealing with is mapping each inetnum: record to an entity
name, using only WHOIS data.