[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] @EXT: RE: Use cases: Fundamental, Incidental, and Theoretical

[Terri Stumme]

Absolutely, Greg. The 2009 law enforcement recommendations regarding
amendments to the RAA addressed Whois data, specifically the need for
validating registrant information. The reason this recommendation was
included in the recommendations is because LE utilizes the data in cyber
investigations. There are many transcripts related to this issue, and LE
has conveyed to the ICANN community on several occasions the importance of
Whois data, and how LE utilizes the data in cyber investigations.





On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 8:59 AM, Mounier, Grégory <
gregory.mounier at europol.europa.eu> wrote:

> Dear Rob,
>
> Thanks for sharing the outcome of your chat with ex-FBI and UK LEA agents.
> I feel that I need to step in to provide a different perspective than the
> one you just gave on the law enforcement use of the WHOIS. It might be a
> matter of interpretation but the views expressed by your interlocutors are
> not shared by my colleagues working throughout European police cyber
> divisions.
>
> If European cyber investigators are obviously all aware of the fact that
> WHOIS registration data can sometime be inaccurate and not up-to-date
> (ICANN compliance reported that for the first quarter of 2015, WHOIS
> inaccuracy comprised 74.0 % of complaints), in 90% of cases they will start
> their investigations with a WHOIS lookup. This is really the first step.
>
> Despite the lack of accuracy, WHOIS information is useful in so many
> different ways. One of the first them is to make correlations and link
> pieces of information obtained through other means than from the WHOIS.
> This was the point I tried to make on Tuesday during the conference call.
>
> Accurate and reliable WHOIS data helps crime attribution and can save
> precious investigation time (you can rule out wrong investigative leads).
> It raises the bar and makes it more difficult for criminals to abuse
> domain names. It pushes them to resort to more complex techniques such as
> ID theft to register domains for malicious purposes.
>
> In short, for LEA WHOIS is certainly not the silver bullet to attribute
> crime on line but it is an essential tool in the tool box of law
> enforcement.
>
> Best,
>
> Greg
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gnso-rds-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org [mailto:gnso-rds-pdp-wg-
> bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Rob Golding
> Sent: 04 August 2016 01:46
> To: RDS PDP WG
> Subject: Re: [gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Use cases: Fundamental, Incidental, and
> Theoretical
>
> >> Theoretical
> >> ===========
> >> We have seen a couple of proposed use cases that seem to be ideas
> >> that people have for useful or harmful ways that RDS can be used, but
> >> that do not exist today (at least not that anyone can fully
> >> document).
> >>
> >> For example, there seems to be a desire to use the RDS as a way to
> >> issue warrants for information about registrants. While this may be
> >> useful, this is not possible today (even with RDAP, I note).
>
> It not only is possible today, it's also "common" (although thankfully not
> frequent)
>
> Registrars get served warrants for details about registrants, and the
> _only_ information from WHOIS that's "needed" or used for such cases is the
> name of the Registrar.
>
> I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Tarbell, ex-FBI Cyber Crime, at
> HostingCon last week - asked about WHOIS/domain data he said "we dont use
> it"
>
> Last year at the UKNOF event in Sheffield I spent quite some time talking
> with some amazing people from the UK CyberCrime departments - asked the
> same questions, they confirmed that although whois _might_ be looked at to
> see if it matches _data they already have_ for confirmation, it's not used
> or relied on.
>
> Which beggars the question, should "LawEnforcement" use cases even be part
> of the discussions ?
>
> Rob
> --
> Rob Golding   rob.golding at astutium.com
> Astutium Ltd, Number One Poultry, London. EC2R 8JR
>
> * domains * hosting * vps * servers * cloud * backups *
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-- 
*Terri Stumme*
*Investigative Analyst*
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