Uwho Requirements Gathering Mark Kosters Andrew Newton Leslie

Uwho Requirements Gathering Mark Kosters Andrew Newton Leslie Daigle Veri. Sign Labs NANOG 24 Uwho BOF, Februrary 2002 Feb-2002

UWhat? • Universal Whois • Veri. Sign has committed undertaking in agreement with ICANN • Formal public consultations – business, intellectual property holders (Aug/01) – civil liberties, other ngo’s (Nov/01) – international input (Nov/01) • Informal public consultations – – – 2 RIPE 40 (Oct/01) NANOG 23 (Oct/01) RIPE 41 (Jan/02) NANOG 24 (Feb/02) APRICOT 2002 ? (Mar/02) Feb-2002

Community at a Glance • If we tried to include every aspect of every type of whois service (past or present) in the world, we would never get any work completed. The scope would be too large. • The subset is the community of people that “administer” the Internet: – – – 3 Network operators and service providers Registry operators Implementers of software (for this community) Registrars, Certificate Authorities, etc. IPR Holders, Law Enforcement, other government agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s), etc… Feb-2002

So is Harmony Communal? • Not always – Laws applying to various network and registry operators vary from country to country. – Some policies may conflict with laws elsewhere. – Registry operators don’t always see eye-to-eye. – Registrars don’t always see eye-to-eye. – … the list goes on… • We must provide the mechanism, not the policy. – Because it is not our job. – And we would never finish if we did. 4 Feb-2002

Some of the Potential Requirements • • • Structured queries and results Referrals and referral-path authority NIC Handle references Standards Ease of implementation and minimal re-invention Machine readability Decentralization and one-stop-shopping. Privacy and access by IPR holders and law enforcement. Adaptable to many policies and laws. • After 30+ years of “Internet Science”, it can be done. 5 Feb-2002

Discussion When we list out some of the requirements, they cause us to ask more questions? Your input is needed. Feb-2002

Structured Queries & Results • Only routing has a standard – RPSL. • What should domain registries use? • What will they be willing to use? – PROVREG is moving forward with XML. • If another schema language (for example XML), what should happen to RPSL? – Would it get XML-ized (components broken into XML elements)? – There is precedence in XML for use of other grammars. – XML Digital Signatures can use X. 509 certs as-is. – W 3 C even defined parts of Xpath with a non-XML grammar. • Queries vary from server to server, especially for the domain registries. – Solved by common schema language and standard schemas. • On settling on a set of standard schema data models: – Which current ones work well? – What needs to be added? 7 Feb-2002

A Unified Protocol/Service • The registry operators are starting to drift apart. – – At least two TLD operators flirting with LDAP. There is nothing like RPSL for domains. ARIN has Rwhois. ICANN registrars being told to use XML for escrow. • Is it time to address this problem? • Or should the naming registries and address and routing registries be allowed to drift apart in how they deliver their “whois” service? 8 Feb-2002

Needs of Network Operators • The most consistent “end-users” of all 3 registry types in terms of frequency and depth of need. • If their needs aren’t met, then the Internet doesn’t run. If their needs aren’t met, the needs of the other endusers won’t matter. – Disagreement? • Requirements of the whois service: – – 9 Machine consumable? Easy to find tools to work with these services? Easier referencing of objects from one service to another? “One-stop-shopping” - a centralized view of a decentralized system? Feb-2002

Burdens on Network Operators • What changes or new features to whois can be done to help with requests from IPR holders and law enforcement? • Is there anything the whois services of the registries can do to ease other burdens? • How will privacy restrictions impact work? • How should “handles” be handled? 10 Feb-2002

Implementation • What types of client tools are needed by network operators? • Is there a desire for a set of client tools that are open source reference implementations? • What is the comfort level in the community with taking open source tools and adapting them to meet specific needs? 11 Feb-2002

Conclusion • Your comments, opinions, and ideas are welcome. – http: //uwho. verisignlabs. com/ • Further reading: – Requirements: – draft-newton-ir-dir-requirements-00. txt – LDAP proposals: – draft-newton-ldap-whois-00. txt – draft-hall-ldap-whois-00. txt – XML proposal: – draft-newton-xdap-01. txt – draft-newton-xdap-domdir-01. txt – draft-newton-xdap-ipdir-01. txt – The State of Whois: – draft-campbell-whois-00. txt – draft-brunner-rfc 954 -historic-00. txt 12 Feb-2002