Slashdot Mirror
Proposal To Limit ISP Contact Data Draws Fire
An anonymous reader writes "A proposal to let Internet service providers conceal the contact information for their business customers is drawing fire from a number of experts in the security community, who say the change will make it harder to mitigate the threat from spam and malicious software, according to a story at Krebsonsecurity.com. From the piece: 'The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) — one of five regional registries worldwide that is responsible for allocating blocks of Internet addresses — later this month will consider a proposal to ease rules that require ISPs to publish address and phone number information for their business customers. Proponents of the plan couch it in terms of property rights and privacy, but critics say it will only lead to litigation and confusion, while aiding spammers and other shady actors who obtain blocks of addresses by posing as legitimate businesses.'"
Almost correct... ARIN does not need IP addresses or contact data to be published for residential dial-in users, provided they are not assigned a /29 (or shorter prefix)
Currently a /29 is the magic number.
If you get a netblock that is larger, such as a netblock with 16, 32, 64, 256, or more contiguous IP address numbers, then the upstream provider has to publish re-assignment information and a contact.
Follow the link to today's spammer tracking report, and see how handy the information can be to track down spam. Also, feel free to do a whois. My contact info is on-line. It's been on-line, under various domain registrations, since I registered my first domain in 1994.