[At-Large] I: [ALAC-Announce] ICANN News Alert -- Notice of Preliminary Determination To Grant Registrar Data Retention Waiver Request for Ascio Technologies, Inc. Danmark - filial af Ascio Technologies, Inc. USA

[John R. Levine]

> Next, it is NOT about not providing access to the WHOIS information for 
> law enforcement agencies.

I'm glad you mentioned that, since that's another misconception common 
among people who aren't familiar with large networks.

>> 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.

Exactly.  I spend a lot of time talking to law enforcement, and sometimes 
even working for them.  But the vast majority of the work done protecting 
Internet users is not done by LE, it's done by organizations ranging from 
bank security departments shutting down crooks phishing their users to 
specialist organizations like Team Cymru who provide security data and 
other services to both LE and private entities.  For example, they're 
running a training meeting in South America next month where I'll be 
teaching forensic techniques to cops (with a translator since my Spanish 
is putrid.)

Identifying people who "need" access is the wrong approach.  The vast 
majority of domains aren't registered by natural persons and have no 
privacy to preserve.  We can figure out how to make the special cases for 
the natural persons who need it, but we also need to deal with the fact 
that a lot of crooks lie.

R's,
John