Notice to Mariners: loss of navigational aids ("whois consultations")

[Eric Brunner <brunner@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

All,

I attended a "whois" related industry event in Washington earlier this month,
directly after the London IETF meeting. I don't want to go into detail, as
oddly, there wasn't much, or name names. I attended as a NeuStar MTS, along
with the Director for Law and Policy of NeuLevel (.biz registry operator).

What I do want to mention is that there was the assertion that a universal,
consistent, and correct "whois" was desireable, and therefore technically
feasible, and feasible within the confines of a free service. The terms
"universal", "consistent" and "correct" were not defined, but "universal"
clearly included all gTLDs, and given the goals [1] advanced by the advocates
of this cliam, national as well.

There may be more such events, possibly with different focii and invitees.

The relevancy, if any, for the nacent IETF whois:43 (whoisfix) and/or !43
working groups, is that the technical complexity of a data base with 270+
physically disjoint authoritative views and schemas supporting a useful
single access mechanism, having consistency semantics, and being correct,
appears to me to be under-appreciated, particularly in the venue mentioned
above.

Back to process, in my next mailings I'll offer yet-another-charter Dave and
I've cooked up based upon London and subsequent list traffic.

[1] Trademark, and law enforcement spokespersons.

Eric

P.S. Notices to Mariners are the CERT Advisories of the maritime industry,
     and lost bouys are a fact of life, in Maine waters and elsewhere.