# Whois is dead as Europe hands DNS overlord ICANN its arse.



## rigoletto@ (Apr 16, 2018)

Whois is dead as Europe hands DNS overlord ICANN its arse.


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## Phishfry (Apr 16, 2018)

I am glad you posted this as I almost did.

How preposterous to hide who owns a domain registration.
I think the public knowledge of site ownership prevents slander.
I really don't see a right to hide if you want to publish on the web.
Call it your license to publish if you want.


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## rigoletto@ (Apr 16, 2018)

I personally like the idea since there will have ways to legally get the information if there is an actual reason for, that would just not be available to everyone.

There are plenty of problems one can experience due to all that information being fully available, from having the registered telephone number made unusable due to countless calls, to scam and similar.

I never had this kind of problem with the domain I own, and the information in there is correct, but I own a Swiss domain what I think isn't too targeted.

I believe who certainly does not like that are the registers selling expensive "private whois packages". My particular register offer that kind of service for free, however Switzerland does not allow "private whois" anymore (quite ironic).


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## Phishfry (Apr 16, 2018)

"there will have to be clear, legal reasons to grant someone access to that full data. It can no longer be a free-for-all."

I really don't see a registrants Name, Phone Number, and Email address as free for all for full data.

Experian leaking all your credit data. Now that is full data.

And like you I have domains for years with NSI with no blowback. I have had the same phone number since 1991.
But yes I get your point with things such as Domain Lock and Secret Registration being sold as a product.


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## ShelLuser (Apr 16, 2018)

On one hand I think it's understandable; there is a bit of a privacy concern and as such Europe reacts to that. But on the other hand I also agree with Phishfry that the whole whois more or less comes with the territory. It's not as if you're being forced into using this.

But that's also why I'm not perse in favor or against the whole thing. Although I do get the impression of double standards being uphold here. I mean... This is a purely voluntarily aspect of domain registration and Europe goes all out against it. Facebook, Google and others on the other hand are easily left alone. Even though those parties often collect private data without any consent what so ever. Makes sense I suppose...

It also makes me wonder how well this has been communicated with European provides. For example: SIDN (the main Internet organization for Dutch (.nl) domains) apparently isn't aware because if I query their whois database then it fully shows plenty of personal data.

I can do the same for French domains using afnic.fr, plenty of contact information and other personal data there.

So like... wouldn't this make more sense if Europe had their own whois data sorted out first?


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## rigoletto@ (Apr 16, 2018)

ShelLuser said:


> I can do the same for French domains using afnic.fr, plenty of contact information and other personal data there.
> 
> So like... wouldn't this make more sense if Europe had their own whois data sorted out first?



IIRC there is a deadline set to that which gave plenty of time (like maybe a couple of years) to ICCAN to "fix" whois(1) but they did nothing (probably thinking the deadline would be delayed) but now the day is close and EU will not give more time to them.


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## rigoletto@ (Apr 16, 2018)

That is related with the EU privacy laws. In other words, if the `whois` does not adapt until the deadline, all registers in EU will be liable for violating the EU privacy law, and could get some quality fines.

If they (EU registers) change the thing on their side, they violate the terms with ICCAN (that is what I understood about this part) and can have problems with them (ICCAN).

The problem appear to be the `whois` is a single system controlled by ICCAN, and the only way to properly change that is via ICCAN, ever if this system need to be splitted for EU part.

EDIT: there are *rumors* about  MPAA, RIAA and copyright trolls doing lobby on ICCAN to hold it at maxium. Apparently they use whois to get info and send mass DMCA notices and similar stuff, and without the whois information those practices would become too expensive.


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## Phishfry (Apr 16, 2018)

Ok theoretical. China want ICCAN to change the whole way it works to suit their security apperatus.

See the slippery slope here. Should they even comply with EU mandates?

If EU members don't like it they are free to use IP numbers.


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## rigoletto@ (Apr 16, 2018)

ICCAN is a non-profit organization working globally, if they do not agree/negotiate with every part (countries specifically) they will not be able to work in those jurisdictions, and will lose relevancy until maybe disappear.

EU (and anyone) can create their own system, compatible or not with ICCAN, but that certainly would not went well, and certainly is not desirable by ICCAN.

There are already some movements putting pressure to de-centralize the internet management, something that not just ICCAN and IANA, but the US Gov certainly would not like see happening. A lot of power would be lost with that.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Apr 16, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> How preposterous to hide who owns a domain registration.
> I think the public knowledge of site ownership prevents slander.
> I really don't see a right to hide if you want to publish on the web.
> Call it your license to publish if you want.



I have private domain registration for my site.  It was an available option with my godaddy registration and not even a question of getting it occurred to me. Or for any previous site I've had.

Nobody needs to know who I am IRL. I make it easy to contact me through my site if there should be an issue. Not that I would disclose that info under normal circumstances anyway.

I don't have a Facebook, Twitter or various other social media accounts either and value my privacy more than that. It's a security issue in my view.

As far as publishing material on the web is concerned, all this is published. Do we need to use our real names for it?


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## Phishfry (Apr 16, 2018)

Trihexagonal said:


> As far as publishing material on the web is concerned, all this is published. Do we need to use our real names for it?


We are on somebody else dime here in the forum. Sponsored by FreeBSD contributions.
We are required to give a valid email address to get an account.

Look I am all for First Ammendment right to free speech. There are limits to Free Speech even under an ideal democracy.
I think the United States does a good job at balancing the First Amendment.
Moving ICCAN from the US Government, Dept of Commerce control was a brave experiment. We will see how it turns out.


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## Phishfry (Apr 16, 2018)

If Russia or China invented the internet do you think they would hand over ICCAN?


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## Deleted member 30996 (Apr 16, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> We are required to give a valid email address to get an account..



Not that I have used my real name on any email account I've ever owned..

I didn't say handing over ICANN was a smart move or that it's a good thing.


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## rigoletto@ (Apr 16, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> If Russia or China invented the internet do you think they would hand over ICCAN?



That wasn't really an option, there was a lot of pressure behind. If that was not made the Internet management will broken in parts, not next day but will happen.

If the biggest parties (countries with high population density[1]) really want they can "simply" create their own incompatible "Internet" (no need for ICCAN, IANA etc.), and then put some glue here and there, to make that work outside their _walls_.

The first business going crazy with that would Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto etc. because if they would want to keep doing business globally, they would need to support many, eventually dozens, of different network implementations.

One time that happens, other problems appear like:

_Well, now that I have my own internet with my own rules, if those kids (Facebook, Amazon, Rackspace, Google etc.) want to play in my ground they will need to pay $$$$$ to passthrough the glue, otherwise they will be glue blocked._

[1] think EU (as whole), India, China, Brazil, Russia, Japan (not high populated but very prone to create their own incompatible systems). Brazil for instance would certainly be one o the firsts to do that. We always had our own incompatible system for everything, like the old TV (Pal-M) and the currently digital one (ISDB-Tb or SBTVD).


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## Phishfry (Apr 16, 2018)

I don't mean to come across as a pompas jerk saying we invented the internet.
Dapra and arapanet tying together universities with defense labs seeded the ideas for the internet.

Obviously Unix and BBN deserve to take a bow here too.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Apr 16, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> ... think EU (as whole), India, China, Brazil, Russia, Japan (not high populated but very prone to create their own incompatible systems). Brazil for instance would certainly be one o the firsts to do that..



Russia threatens to set up its 'own internet' with China, India and pals

There is additional discussion of DNS.


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