[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Dangers of public whois

Mon Feb 20 00:51:53 UTC 2017

This email chain has become overwhelming in length, so my apologies if I am misinterpreting the recent direction of the discussion.

From what you describe, Steve, of “settled expectations” over 15-20 years, WHOIS is a classic case of path dependency; it was a feature of the Internet that was designed in different conditions for different purposes and has been misappropriated by other parties because it was the closest thing to a form of global identification of website owners that could be offered in an Internet that lacked other tools to answer such a question. I think we both understand how this came to be; what I do not understand (or, rather, find difficult to accept) is the argument for why it must continue.

I accept that open-access WHOIS may, to a limited extent, facilitate accountability online. My understanding of the concern of trademark holders is that they need a mechanism of enforcing their trademark rights against parties who register domain names which in their view infringe upon their mark(s). Without WHOIS there is a perception that there is no means of initiating a process against the party which is perceived as misusing a trademark. Please correct me if I am mistaken or the concern is broader. There are also arguments that law enforcement and private investigators use WHOIS in their investigations.

At the same time, in order to have such a system in place to facilitate contact with the very, very small minority of domain name registrants whose domain names infringe upon the trademark/IP rights of others, or engage in abusive activities, we expose the sensitive personal data of all domain name registrants to three categories of real and significant abuse. These categories include: 1) unsolicited mass communication, 2) individual solicitation and harassment, and 3) the suppression of free speech. To the first point, we already know that entities are harvesting WHOIS records and using this information to spam others with marketing literature. To the second point, WHOIS has been used to dox and swat vulnerable persons, and to commit identify fraud, among other nefarious activities. To the third point, the lack of anonymity in the WHOIS service quashes the free expression of thought, because speakers have no protection from retaliation. These are all very significant privacy issues which need to be addressed, and should have been addressed long ago, so I take strong objection to the comment, Steve, that privacy advocates “have been crying wolf on this issue for more than a decade”. The entire burden of ending the problematic, pre-existing default of open access to WHOIS records has been placed on privacy advocates, while proponents of open access have the luxury of reaping the benefits of inertia from our lack of consensus for change.

Best wishes,

Ayden Férdeline
[linkedin.com/in/ferdeline](http://www.linkedin.com/in/ferdeline)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Dangers of public whois
Local Time: 19 February 2017 9:40 PM
UTC Time: 19 February 2017 21:40
From: met at msk.com
To: 'theo geurts' <gtheo at xs4all.nl>, nathalie coupet <nathaliecoupet at yahoo.com>, gnso-rds-pdp-wg at icann.org <gnso-rds-pdp-wg at icann.org>, rrasmussen at infoblox.com <rrasmussen at infoblox.com>

Let me offer a +3/4 to the chain below. The following are my personal views.

I don’ t have any fundamental disagreement with Theo’s take on this. Yes, if we (or the original designers of the current RDS) had ready access to time machines, it would certainly have been designed quite differently.

But over 15-20 years, settled expectations have been built up that contact data for domain name registrants will be available to the public without significant restrictions. People in many fields have come to rely on this as an element that promotes transparency, and thus accountability, for activities on the Internet. Everyone recognizes that it is a highly flawed tool for advancing this goal, but nonetheless it is a tool many people rely on, and many of them would be very unhappy if an organization like ICANN --- still unknown to the vast majority of Internet users – were somehow to take it away for them.

So if we are to move to a new system that will deprive people (entirely or to a great extent) of this tool, then this needs to be accompanied by some clear explanations of why it is absolutely necessary to do so, and how what will replace it will give members of the general public – not just anti-abuse specialists, law enforcement and yes even intellectual property interests --- at least some part of the transparency they have come to associate with the existing system.

And personally, I don’t think that enactment of the GDPR comes close – by itself – to providing that explanation. The new regulation does not strike me as a quantum leap beyond the EU data protection framework that has been in place for more than 20 years, almost as long as Whois itself. Ever since at least 2002 in Shanghai and 2003 in Montreal we have been hearing at ICANN about the impending train wreck when Whois collides with the data protection authorities. Those who have been crying wolf on this issue for more than a decade will have to take that into account in crafting the narrative that will be needed to explain a change of the magnitude we are discussing.

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From: gnso-rds-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org [mailto:gnso-rds-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of theo geurts
Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2017 4:24 PM
To: nathalie coupet; gnso-rds-pdp-wg at icann.org; rrasmussen at infoblox.com
Subject: Re: [gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Dangers of public whois

Hi Rod, Thanks, Nathalie,

@Rod
That is good info, and I agree this is something we need to keep in mind
when we get to that stage, but yes as a WG that should compass us.

And even though we should not get ahead of ourselves, but regarding
solutions, having front row seats assisting LEA's and Intelligence
agencies as a Registrar in several high-profile investigations like
terrorism, IS, bounty kill lists and a lot more, I am pretty sure we as
a WG can honor the principle that privacy is a human right as laid out
by the UN, and yet make sure, we have the technical solutions. I think
creating the technical solutions is the least of our worries. Engineers
can code a solution for everything; we just need lawyers and privacy
guidelines to help us out. So perhaps we cannot show you X as it is
personal data we can show you A and how A is involved in tons of
criminal activities and map out an entire botnet...

Have a good weekend or what is left of it.

Theo

On 18-2-2017 21:44, nathalie coupet via gnso-rds-pdp-wg wrote:
> I was holding my breath to see what the reaction would be. +2 to Theo!
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Feb 18, 2017, at 2:10 PM, Rod Rasmussen <rrasmussen at infoblox.com> wrote:
>>
>> I cannot PLUS ONE this comment enough - thank you Theo!
>>
>> One thing that I would like to point out that we covered in the EWG and I think is one of many keys to solving many of the issues exposed here but is missing from this current debate is the concept that we do not have to come up with a “one size fits all” solution. For example, there are different requirements under privacy law for business entities vs. private individuals, there are different amounts of information people and businesses may want to provide to various parties both publicly and privately, and those of us who deal with abuse and domain reputation can make different decisions on actions (blocking, take-down, LE involvement, etc.) based on what is occurring and what is published in an RDS. Everyone in the ecosystem already does this with the current whois system, but inconsistently, with varying degrees of knowledge, and without formal “rules of the road”. I think it would be helpful for everyone, no matter what your primary issues are to keep this in mind, as it allows you to better conceive solutions to the myriad issues we have to address. Make the system flexible to accommodate different kinds of use cases and desires for “transparency” around domain ownership, contactabilty, and accountability.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Rod
>>
>>
>> Rod Rasmussen
>> VP, Cybersecurity
>> Infoblox
>>
>>> On Feb 17, 2017, at 1:09 PM, theo geurts <gtheo at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>>
>>> Mark,
>>>
>>> Thank you for your comment. I think you are nailing the problem here; this is very good IMO.
>>>
>>> "and the need to mitigate them does not eliminate the need to have public data."
>>>
>>> This is the issue here. That data should have never been public if we look at the EU GDPR and many other data privacy laws around the globe, and this is what causes Registries and Registrars having massive problems regarding complying with the law.
>>>
>>> So we with the RDS we are starting from scratch. So and I think this is KEY here, how do we ensure privacy and yet make sure we can still effectively combat abuse.
>>>
>>> Speaking personally, I think privacy is very important, and I do not like the fact my personal data is being processed all over the place by shady folks.
>>> As a Registrar, I find it very important that we should not go backward in fighting abuse. For the simple reason, abuse costs us money, and we should never be in a situation that it becomes harder to battle child porn, or taking down terrorists, or sinkhole botnets.
>>>
>>> So what we cannot do is ignore all these privacy laws. That would be insane as we would be piling up in tons of fines here.
>>> We do not want to reduce effectiveness regarding abuse because that is costing money also. And to be clear here, the registrants will be soaking it all up one way or another.
>>>
>>> So my take on this is, we make sure that we move on and address BOTH issues and this is our task as a WG. Our task is to solve these problems as we start from scratch with RDS. We learned our lessons from the current WHOIS, now we need to make sure that we can avoid all these pitfalls within RDS.
>>>
>>> Thank you for making it this far.
>>>
>>> Have a good weekend,
>>>
>>> Theo
>>> Registrar
>>>
>>>
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