funsec mailing list archives

Re: WHOIS Privacy Stalemate... Again


From: "John LaCour" <johnlacour () gmail com>
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:53:25 -0700

Private registration is an issue when bad guys register domains, but
in practice I don't see this too often.   It's more often that they
use completely made up information or just use a stolen identity.  For
example, all of the rock phish domains were registered with the actual
name and address of the person whose stolen credit card was used to
pay for the domain (last time I checked).

Access to the WHOIS information is also helpful when a legitimate
organization has had their resources misappropriated (e.g. their
server hacked) and you want to contact them to get things cleaned up.
 Registrars and ISPs would find themselves being the middle man
thousands of times a day if they have to vet requests for contact
information due to security incidents (on top of the abuse issues they
already have to manage).

-John

On 8/22/07, Larry Seltzer <Larry () larryseltzer com> wrote:
Aren't there other people, people here even, that are interested in
keeping some level of whois available to the public - besides those big
scary black helicopter types that are only trying to track your Internet
doings?!

I'm also uncomfortable with the stereotypes in this story which,
unfortunately, follow from the interest groups formally represented at
the GNSO.

The fight is more than just a bit illogical. The interests of
intellectual property holders and other privacy opponents may be impeded
by an OPOC setup, but it's already impeded by private registration. No
process to get information from a private registration is going to be
any easier than the OPOC, so the fact that the process won't be
standardized means that the incentive for disparate private
registrations to develop is greater. Seems like a bigger mess to me.

Larry Seltzer
eWEEK.com Security Center Editor
http://security.eweek.com/
http://blogs.eweek.com/cheap_hack/
Contributing Editor, PC Magazine
larry.seltzer () ziffdavisenterprise com

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