CircleID

An industry professional at Abusix is the backbone behind a proposal to improve and create better mitigation of abuse across different global internet networks. Basically, this introduces a mandatory "abuse contact" field for objects in global Whois databases. This provides a more efficient way for abuse reports to reach the correct network contact. Personally — as a Postmaster for a leading, white-label ISP, I applaud this with great happiness for multiple reasons. I also feel people who handle abuse desks, anti-abuse roles, etc. should closely follow this.

Let's take a look across the internet: we can review various RIRs (Regional Internet Registries) where a proposal has either already been approved, or in progress. Below,

• AfriNIC (Africa Region): Proposal draft submitted April 7, 2010. Read more herehere.

• ARIN (North America Region): An abuse-POC already exists for Organizational ID identifiers. Read more here.

• LACNIC (Latin America and some Caribbean Islands): An "abuse-c:" exists for aut-num, inetnum and inet6num objects. Understand and note that there's no formal documentation on "abuse-c:" in inetnum and inet6num objects, but for documentation on the "abuse-c" in ASN records, see LACNIC Policy Manual (v1.3 - 07/11/2009). Read more here.

• RIPE NCC (Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia): Draft submitted November 8, 2010, which is open for discussion in the hands of RIPE's anti-abuse working group. Read more here.

• APNIC (Asia/Pacific Region): "Prop-079" proposal implemented November 8, 2010. Read more here.

This brings me to the main reason for my post: APNIC just recently implemented their proposal about a fortnight ago. Above all, ensuring there's a dedicated abuse contact/department that specifically resolves abuse and security issues will go a long way to limit potential damage and enhance recovery.

MAAWG submitted comments in August 2010 supporting this proposal as well.

By Udeme Ukutt, Postmaster. Visit the blog maintained by Udeme Ukutt here.

Related topics: Internet Governance, Policy & Regulation, Regional Registries, Security, Web, Whois