On 2015-12-17 07:44 PM, John R. Levine wrote:
People with no experience with large networks, which includes pretty much everyone on the ALAC, often seem to believe that collecting less information about domain registrants always improves the privacy of Internet users. The reality is much more subtle.
The vast majority of users have never registered a domain and never will, so WHOIS doesn't affect them, while the vast majority of domains are registered for commercial purposes, and a dismaying number for criminal purposes. A large registrar often turns off 10,000 domains a day for malware, phishing, and other malevolent behavior.
The WHOIS information that most of the waivers concern is very useful for identifying and dealing with criminals. That is so even though a lot of it is faked, since the crooks tend to have patterns when they fake stuff. I'm not guessing about this, I talk to people every day at network operators who are protecting their users and law enforcement who are protecting their citizens.
Registrars should certainly comply with their national laws, and I agree that some of ICANN's rules are silly, e.g., when they grant a waiver, it should automatically apply to other registrars or registries in the same jurisdiction. But when you make it harder to tell who's behind a domain, you're also making it easier for criminals to siphon the money out of your grandmother's bank account. That may be a reasonable tradeoff, but it's a tradeoff and one that deserves better than the kneejerk reeactions we always see here.
R's, John
+1 To illustrate the point, search for "fjrasile@yahoo.com". Hint: Supplying bogus data has nothing to do with privacy. Also look at the period over which those domains were registered with the registrar constantly being made aware of the issue. You'll also find this party uses more than one registrar. This is just one of many such. We also do not wish to subject the public to domains such as eicu-ae.com (spoofing eic.ac.ae ); "beautiful" WHOIS not even meeting the basic sanity checks. Yet we wish to hide this with privacy? Such issues are seen daily on domains that are registered for purposes to the detriment of the ordinary innocent user. The problem is the majority of registrants are not malicious. But a small handful are and they are extremely active in registering domains with ever changing fake WHOIS details. Even fake WHOIS details may leave patterns (as John said). Ironically I've alerted victims of credit card fraud that their details are being abused by a fraudster in WHOIS where the the pattern did not match the other circumstances. Were it not for WHOIS, this would have slipped past the victim due to the small amounts involved. Here's the problem. Unaccountable privacy is nothing more than anonymity and can be used to devastating effect against the ordinary innocent people using the internet. Some Registrars have shown themselves to not really do WHOIS sanity checks or care, some are deliberately obstructive and discourage reporting fake WHOIS, ignoring ongoing linked issues. The WDPRS system has shown itself to not be effective in such cases. Some registrars simply does not care. Laws differ from country to country. Some Registrars and resellers use this as a strategic marketing tool to attract a certain type of client. Some openly attract clients practising what would be considered illegal activities, such a fraud, in Europe, the US and most parts of the word, simply due to a jurisdiction issues and they way local law is structured. So for a mere $10-$15 a repeat malicious registrant can go jurisdiction shopping, targeting whomever he wishes, even residents of the country he lives in. E.g.: http://mediaon.com/Real-Whois-Protection.php Ironically the initial home of the German "Fake Shopkeeper Gang" who was responsible for Germany largest cyber fraud losses up to 2012. The gang moved to 'Russian' reseller Heihachi (Home of the disavowed Wikileaks copy). Later both the German gang and the Austrian owner of Heihachi were arrested. The owner of Heihachi had a prior criminal record, yet was a reseller for one of America's largest Registrars, had fake whois details as was constantly pointed out to the registrar and ICANN. So the reseller was offered a WHOIS proxy service by the registrar. In turn Heihachi offered WHOIS proxy services for domains belonging to carders, botnet herders, malware creators and distributors etc. Is this the Internet we we want? The problem is law enforcement simply does not have the resources to cater for all of the abuse found on the net. Then there is the international social/political issues. This is no reflection on the authorities, rather the state of the net and certain realities. That is why the authorities rely on partnerships with other private groups. Regards, Derek Smythe Artists Against 419 http://www.aa419.org