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Russia to Halt Public Access to .RU Whois Data?

An anonymous reader writes "A Domain Tools blog post is reporting on a Russian newspaper article regarding a provision of Russian law that would prohibit public access or posting of Whois data for the .RU TLD without written permission. The Personal Data law, which the article states went into effect on January 30, 2007, will require compliance by RosNIIROSa (www.ripn.net) by 2010."

10 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. SO am I right in thinking... by Churla · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That this means the single largest collection of hacking and spamming sites will now have protection against people finding out who even owns the domains they run from?

    --
    I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
    1. Re:SO am I right in thinking... by Not+The+Real+Me · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...largest collection of hacking and spamming sites will now have protection against people finding out who even owns the domains...

      I do believe that is the goal. It's the Russian embrace of western capitalism. The Russians are looking to attract (and protect) the type of web site entrepreneurs who would be in violation of the stricter U.S. laws. Periodically you will see news items where U.S. authorities crack down on web site operators whose servers are hosted in Russia but the persons behind the operations reside in the United States.

  2. Works for me. I hate the fact that it's required. by garcia · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's absolutely no reason that in the US we must have valid contact information in that database. I use my work address, phone number, and my website spam GMail account on there because I don't want to deal w/the bullshit spam, letters in the mail, etc.

    Whoever had the bright idea to mandate that for ending spam didn't think clearly. Perhaps Russia (while not their motivation for this move) is on the right track.

  3. Sometimes the jokes write themselves by ameyer17 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Currently online RosNIIROSa (www.ripn.net) on the WhoIs contact name and contact telephone owner of a site in the cloud. For example, you can find out what famous site compromat.ru owns Sergei Gorshkov

    In Soviet Russia, compromat.ru own YOU!
  4. No Big Loss by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Spammers have already laid .ru low. I know of more than a few small to medium companies that flat out drop emails if there's a .ru _anywhere_ in the email. Not just the from or reply to fields. If there's a http link pointing to a .ru domain, they drop it.

    I try to tell them that just dropping "mail.ru" would be a better longterm strategy, but their minds are usually made up. I think this may be some kind of holdover from the cold war.("The Russian's have internets?! Blockade their commie propaganda!")

    Anyway, my point is that lack of whois information is the least of .ru's problems right now. Though it boggles me how a TLD trustee can get away with not publishing whois information while still under ICANN's rules.

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!
  5. Re:....then who do I call? by mzs · · Score: 3, Funny

    abuse@kremvax.ru

  6. reputation, identity, character... by spottedkangaroo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    See, for me, this is simply a matter of character. Or the appearance of it. If you don't want me to know who you are, why should I accept mail from your domain at all?

    I run the email for a pretty small ISP. When a mail server (or farm) starts going crazy and trying to kill my servers with hundreds of connections per second; the first thing I do is drop the packets from the network. I then check the whois listing to see if it's yahoo! or ebay or something like that and consider unblocking it after I know who I'm dealing with.

    When the whois says "NONAME NETOWRK ASSOcIATES" or there simply isn't anything listed, they stay on the drop list. So this is really a handy development. Essentially nothing from .ru will look legit anymore so I can just block all of it, right?

    --
    Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
  7. Coincidence? by UncleOwl · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Estonian servers have been under constant barrage of DDOS attempts since April 26, much of which have been tracked to Russian servers. Now Russians try to obfuscate their whois. Is it just me, or are those two events linked...?

  8. Somebody has to say this... by iago-vL · · Score: 3, Funny

    In conservative Canada, information protects you!

  9. Re:Mmmmm.... a conspracy... by Qzukk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actions have multiple consequences, so why can't they have multiple causes?

    Inconceivable! If that were the case, then how could we continue to blame videogames for violence, blame WMD's for the invasion on Iraq, and incompetence for that which could be ascribed to malice?!

    --
    If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.