North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Suggestion: Add contact entry to whois

  • From: Tim Wolfe
  • Date: Fri Feb 26 18:58:52 1999

On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, Bob Allisat wrote:

>  How about this astro... FCN, in protecting the
>  privacy of it's law-abiding clients, keeps all
>  information provided PRIVATE and CONFIDENTIAL.
>  As per our Terms of Service. In the event of 
>  the rare abuse of our services those aflicted
>  contact the appropriate authorities who, in
>  term, begin investigating like they would any
>  other complaint from the public. If the need
>  arises they seek a court order for information
>  which is otherwise confidential. The investigation
>  continues to what is, hopefully, an appropriate
>  conclusion. All with public oversight, civilian
>  control and legal safeguards.
> 

How utopian.  The only problem with that argument is that stopping a DOS
attack does not require that a provider to divulge confidential information
about a customer anyways...  Unless of course, someone is trying to bring
legal action after the fact, which is normally accompanied by the court
orders, subpoenas, etc that you cherish so much.  Maybe I'm just doing
something extraordinary, but if someone calls me up and says, "I'm seeing a
massive smurf attack originating from X.Y.Z.A and we see that you own
X.Y.Z.A-X.Y.Z.F.  Can you verify and take action according to your
AUP/TOS?", I can't think of why I would need to divulge client info to
accede to that request..  I can just verify the veracity of the accuser's
info, and take action.  I'm just not following your logic, do you think that
if someone calls and says "X.Y.Z.A is (insert DOS)ing me!", you must reply,
"Oh yes, it's company XYZ.Net, they are so naughty!"

Tim

----------------------------------------------------
Timothy M. Wolfe       | Why surf when you can Sail? 
[email protected]	       | Join Oregon's Premier
Sr. Network Engineer   | Wireless Internet Provider!
ClipperNet Corporation | http://www.clipper.net/
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