ICANN Working Group Seeks To Kill WHOIS 155
angry tapir writes "An Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers working group is seeking public input on a successor to the current WHOIS system used to retrieve domain name information. The Expert Working Group on gTLD Directory Services has issued a report that recommends a radical change from WHOIS, replacing the current system with a centralized data store maintained by a third party that would be responsible for authorizing 'requestors' who want to obtain domain information."
Single point of failure. (Score:5, Insightful)
A corporation is a single point of failure. As ICANN repeatedly demonstrates.
Did i just read... (Score:3, Insightful)
"centralized data store maintained by a third party"
Also the US government would certainly love to manage such entity.
So that's a huge no.
Well there goes the neighborhood (Score:4, Insightful)
Great, so we are going to privatize the WHOIS service and make it much more difficult (pay per query?) to get information out of it.
Guessing one of the usual corrupt telcos or domain name registration companies will bid to be the 'third party' and find a way to fuck this up good.
How monetize "whois"... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is all about setting up a system to charge for access to 'whois' information. Phrases like "authorizing 'requestors'" is code for charging users.
I don't like the sound of this (Score:5, Insightful)
What we need is a standard format for WHOIS responses. What we don't need is some monopoly gatekeeper.
Stupid Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
There should be a way for any person to contact any domain owner or domain-owning company. Putting a service in to vet requests will make it harder.
This is bad. And less transparent. And less distributed. And more expensive.
Re:Did i just read... (Score:5, Insightful)
Good ol' times. Back when we were the free world. Remember those times? Life was good. The older ones might even remember it.
Be honest. Do you think this would happen now?
ICANN cares not about users (Score:5, Insightful)
How so, you might ask? Right now the current WHOIS gives vague lipservice to requiring domain registrations (and only under a very specific list of TLDs at that) to be registered with valid information. As it is, a not-insignificant portion of all new registrations at any given time are completed with missing or completely bogus information. And yet when this happens ICANN - who is tasked with making WHOIS data legible - almost always does nothing.
Now, they are just looking to openly embrace obfuscated, missing, and utterly bogus data in WHOIS records. The only people who benefit form this are the registrars that sell domains that benefit from that kind of lax registration requirement - spammers, scammers, and the like. If you don't think this matters to you, just wait until someone you know has their identity stolen after they mistype the web page for their bank, click on a fake ebay email, or do anything of that nature. The scum that will make money off of this will get to someone close to you, and this action will make it even less likely that those types will ever see any kind of punishment for their actions.
In other words, fuck you ICANN. I hope you profiteering fucks get fucked in the ass. And then when someone tries to fuck me because of your fucking stupid actions I will do everything I can to direct them to fuck you instead, you stupid fucking fucks.
Re:How monetize "whois"... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is all about setting up a system to charge for access to 'whois' information. Phrases like "authorizing 'requestors'" is code for charging users.
Have you tried searching for a WHOIS record lately? Well over 90% of the records I have searched for in the past 2-3 years have been intentionally obfuscated by various systems as it is. This only accelerates their profits. This is, of course, the only thing the guys at ICANN have been interested in for some time (remember the auctions for gTLDs?).
Re:not having read TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have to have permission, you will certainly pay a fee, ig for no other reason than to pay the wages of the permission issuers.
Re:Horrible for network security... (Score:5, Insightful)
If i was getting paid each time you wanted to find out who was attacking you, I might be tempted to make sure you were attacked more often... Just sayin...
Re:Requestors is the NSA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't like the sound of this (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have to answer all of them. You don't have to directly answer their questions either. You could just say things like:
- I don't want this. This system is not in my best interest.
- I don't want to register with anyone to query this data.
- Abuse mitigation should be handled by each registrar, this is a good way for them to differentiate themselves.
- I don't want to pay for this system at all
- Law enforcement should be given no special access at all. Nobody should accredit them.
You could also contact your registrar if you own a lot of domains and let them know you don't support this move at all. Ask them to oppose it.
Re:Having read TFA and the propsal (Score:4, Insightful)
I for one prefer to have my domain details stored in my own country. We have reasonably decent privacy protection laws here, and I think the current system is adequate but am concerned about having a larger offshore database with more detail stored overseas if that country does not have sufficient privacy protection (likely).