[At-Large] Impressions from the Whois-Review

John R. Levine johnl at iecc.com
Mon Jan 31 16:37:34 UTC 2011


> 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 at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly



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