Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

cooley.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 163 posts

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#41

Post by bhhaskin »

robalfonso wrote: post #4

In the short term WHOIS is going to be limited to just the registrant organization, state, country and a masked email address (Admin and Technical fields will be removed save email). This is short term to come into compliance with GDPR. Long term ICANN intends to create a privileged group (other registrars, law enforcement, etc) Who will be able to get to the full whois data. So a sort of tiered system. Expect this t…

Just another way ICANN can make money. You can bet your bottom they will sell the premium access.

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#42

Post by brewtide »

mort96 wrote: post #6
kbar13 wrote: post #2

domain registration data is in a weird place for the modern internet. I can see the value of having a real registry when it was first developed, but now it seems like a pretty easy way for people to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to privacy. Also, some registrars charge a premium for WHOIS privacy. It should not cost extra to have your legal name and address to be hidden from the entirety of the internet.

Do any registrars not charge a premium for Whois privacy? I know Hover doesn't have a separate Whois privacy entry price, but the base price at Hover seems to be about the price of a domain + Whois privacy at other registrars.

namesilo

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#43

Post by AckSyn »

jedberg wrote: post #34
kbar13 wrote: post #2

domain registration data is in a weird place for the modern internet. I can see the value of having a real registry when it was first developed, but now it seems like a pretty easy way for people to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to privacy. Also, some registrars charge a premium for WHOIS privacy. It should not cost extra to have your legal name and address to be hidden from the entirety of the internet.

When you buy a house, your name and the purchase price are public information. Any one at any time can look up who owns a house, how much they paid for it, and how much they pay in property tax every year. I get a ton of spam because of this. However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret. I've had to look up owner information before to contact owners of various properties, and havin…

This is kind of a weak comparison. You can always look up the whois and send email to the privacy address, just like you can send mail to the physical address to reach the owners of a specific property.

I wish home ownership were private. Aside from the DMV selling your data it's where I get most of my junk mail from.

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#44

Post by mynameisvlad »

dictum wrote: post #37
jedberg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you buy a house, your name and the purchase price are public information. Any one at any time can look up who owns a house, how much they paid for it, and how much they pay in property tax every year. I get a ton of spam because of this. However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret. I've had to look up owner information before to contact owners of various properties, and havin…

> However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret. I don't mean to be cynical, but isn't this system also the one in which some people simply register their houses under a shell company?

Isn't that exactly the same as PrivacyGuard or other WHOIS anonymizing services? If anything, it reinforces the analogy even more.

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#45

Post by forapurpose »

robalfonso wrote: post #4

In the short term WHOIS is going to be limited to just the registrant organization, state, country and a masked email address (Admin and Technical fields will be removed save email). This is short term to come into compliance with GDPR. Long term ICANN intends to create a privileged group (other registrars, law enforcement, etc) Who will be able to get to the full whois data. So a sort of tiered system. Expect this t…

> Long term ICANN intends to create a privileged group (other registrars, law enforcement, etc) Who will be able to get to the full whois data.

To a substantial degree it's privacy for the powerful and transparency for the weak. It should be the reverse: The powerful and government institutions should be transparent, and citizens should have their privacy.

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#46

Post by mort96 »

wilg wrote: post #17
mort96 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do any registrars not charge a premium for Whois privacy? I know Hover doesn't have a separate Whois privacy entry price, but the base price at Hover seems to be about the price of a domain + Whois privacy at other registrars.

It's included on Hover as well.

That's what I meant with "I know Hover doesn't have a separate Whois privacy entry price, but the base price at Hover seems to be about the price of a domain + Whois privacy at other registrars".

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#47

Post by ktosobcy »

jedberg wrote: post #34
kbar13 wrote: post #2

domain registration data is in a weird place for the modern internet. I can see the value of having a real registry when it was first developed, but now it seems like a pretty easy way for people to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to privacy. Also, some registrars charge a premium for WHOIS privacy. It should not cost extra to have your legal name and address to be hidden from the entirety of the internet.

When you buy a house, your name and the purchase price are public information. Any one at any time can look up who owns a house, how much they paid for it, and how much they pay in property tax every year. I get a ton of spam because of this. However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret. I've had to look up owner information before to contact owners of various properties, and havin…

Is that a US thing? I understand that having some registry with this information is needed (but maybe not with details down to taxation) but... having it behind some officials "firewall" would solve that?

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#49

Post by walrus01 »

there is another type of whois that people don't ordinarily interact with, but is essential for the correct operation of the internet...

ARIN, RIPE, APNIC and AFRINIC run whois databases for IP space. Network operators use them to find who controls chunks of v4 space (ranging from the globally-minimum-announceable /24 to /12). ISPs can use tools like SWIP to point the whois for a block of space in use by a customer to that customer's whois info.

I sincerely hope that this doesn't become more difficult to use, because it will make basic network diagnostics at a WAN scale much more annoying.

The good news is that the typical ISP-level info in IP space whois databases doesn't fall under the GPDR, since most are role accounts (abuse@ispname.com , noc@ispname.com, etc). Also generic phone numbers for NOC and network engineering groups. However, a lot of ISPs do currently have individual persons listed as points of contact in their whois entries.

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#50

Post by [deleted] »

ktosobcy wrote: post #47
jedberg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you buy a house, your name and the purchase price are public information. Any one at any time can look up who owns a house, how much they paid for it, and how much they pay in property tax every year. I get a ton of spam because of this. However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret. I've had to look up owner information before to contact owners of various properties, and havin…

Is that a US thing? I understand that having some registry with this information is needed (but maybe not with details down to taxation) but... having it behind some officials "firewall" would solve that?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN