John: I generally support the tone of your response but take exception o the coloration you place on ALAC's posture on WHOIS. I cannot accept that there cannot be a balance between the right to privacy and the right to know for those harmed by an act traceable to a domain. I certainly do not consider myself as a front for domain registrants and I strongly doubt others of the group would as well. I consider the requirement for WHOIS data for all registrants ordinary and well-intended. I consider the falsification of WHOIS data in a similar light to the falsification of any public record; incivil, at least. I consider the lax enforcement of recorded WHOIS data - especially the quality of it - by ICANN contrary to their own mediocre requirements and, for the most part, vacillatory. Carlton Samuels Chair, WHOIS WG At-Large ============================== Carlton A Samuels Mobile: 876-818-1799 Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround ============================= On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 11:37 AM, John R. Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
That's bullshit. Whois makes it easy. But it's not necessary.
It's unlikely to reflect well on the ALAC or yourself to reject Neil's expertise simply because it contradicts your personal preferences.
I talk to many of the same law enforcement people that Neil does, and I hear the same thing: even in its current imperfect form WHOIS is an invaluable tool for tracking down the criminals who prey on the non-technical users that the ALAC purportedly represents. You may not like it, but it's the truth.
Arguments about what's "necessary" are silly. The DNS isn't "necessary". Telephones aren't "necessary". E-mail isn't "necessary". We could just grab big sticks and run off and hunt the bad guys.
I really wish that the ALAC would get over the 1990s idea that somehow it represents the tiny handful of individual vanity domain registrants (such as me) in preference to the vast majority of users who have never registered a domain and never will.
Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly _______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large
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