Dear NANOG, Thank you for the replies — both the substantive critiques and the pointed ones. Jamie and Sergey were right that the original note should have identified the researchers, the institution, the advisor, and the IRB tracking number, and I apologize for that omission. For the record: - Researchers: myself (Weitong Li, Postdoctoral Researcher, weitongli@vt.edu) and my advisor, Prof. Taejoong (Tijay) Chung (tijay@cs.vt.edu), Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech. - Ethics review: the study, including the two surveys, has been reviewed by the Virginia Tech Human Research Protection Program and determined to be Not Human Subjects Research (IRB tracking number IRB-26-064). No personally identifiable information is collected, and the organization/ASN field is explicitly optional. Questions about participant rights can go to irb@vt.edu. On the substance: Izaac suggested that running a script over WHOIS is enough to show that abuse contacts are broken. I agree that measurement is where this work starts, and the surveys are in fact a small complement to a larger measurement study — distributed honeypot observations plus a randomized controlled reporting experiment across several thousand reports — that attempts exactly the kind of systematic evaluation a one-shot script cannot provide: how effectiveness varies by recipient choice, by registry, by infrastructure type (ISP / hosting / leasing / BYOIP), and by follow-up strategy. What measurement cannot see is the operator-side reasoning: how abuse desks triage reports, which evidence they actually find useful, and why a structured abuse-c field sometimes loses to a free-text note — or to a well-placed trolling address. Randy, thanks for the live demo; AR52766-RIPE is a memorable case in point and sits squarely inside what we are trying to characterize, namely the gap between what registry records look like and what they do in practice. The surveys exist to capture that operator-side reasoning, not to substitute for measurement. The surveys are now reopened with updated consent information at the top of each form: - Abuse report senders: https://forms.gle/oDAa8ZDnwsGZiNFT6 - Abuse report recipients / abuse contacts: https://forms.gle/TPKjjwXFuhuX8GV7A One more note, and an apology: if you already submitted a response before the surveys were paused, thank you, and I am sorry to have to ask this — those earlier responses fell outside the updated consent terms and will not be used in our analysis. If you are willing to submit again under the updated consent, it would be genuinely appreciated, and if you prefer not to, I completely understand. If there are questions, we should consider adding, framings we should adjust, or sharp operational cases we ought to cover, I would be glad to hear from the list, on or off. Thanks again, Weitong Li Virginia Tech weitongli@vt.edu ________________________________ From: Li, Weitong via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2026 4:23 PM To: nanog@lists.nanog.org <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: Li, Weitong <weitongli@vt.edu> Subject: Survey on IP Address Abuse Reporting Practices and Managements Dear NANOG community members, We are researchers from Virginia Tech. We are studying the management of Abuse contacts in WHOIS records for IP address and how abuse contacts are managed and how abuse reports are handled in practice, from both the sender side and the recipient side. To better understand the operational reality of abuse reporting, we invite you to participate in our surveys: For abuse report senders: https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforms.gle%2FoDAa8ZDnwsGZiNFT6&data=05%7C02%7Cweitongli%40vt.edu%7Cf3a09e1a79794edef86a08dea0ad27a5%7C6095688410ad40fa863d4f32c1e3a37a%7C0%7C0%7C639124862721897585%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=YMzV5vbvpljNuqQ0r7Hu3ezyGWWCD%2FWVmQGsuy0RBHc%3D&reserved=0<https://forms.gle/oDAa8ZDnwsGZiNFT6> For abuse report recipients / abuse contacts: https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforms.gle%2FTPKjjwXFuhuX8GV7A&data=05%7C02%7Cweitongli%40vt.edu%7Cf3a09e1a79794edef86a08dea0ad27a5%7C6095688410ad40fa863d4f32c1e3a37a%7C0%7C0%7C639124862721965020%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=8fAbyFls3JqiLBJ04MNL24rpJGgm6Gx38gQgGFR3gqo%3D&reserved=0<https://forms.gle/TPKjjwXFuhuX8GV7A> Privacy & Data Usage: We are committed to protecting participants’ data. Survey responses will be handled carefully, and any reporting of results will not reveal personally identifiable information. Thank you for your time and for supporting this research! Best, Weitong _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.nanog.org%2Farchives%2Flist%2Fnanog%40lists.nanog.org%2Fmessage%2F26FSBQWIG7WGMEKEZCVJE5R566BMME7O%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cweitongli%40vt.edu%7Cf3a09e1a79794edef86a08dea0ad27a5%7C6095688410ad40fa863d4f32c1e3a37a%7C0%7C0%7C639124862722028081%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=QpGMtkbCYOwiJ5z16o5ks2SydMPE%2BzRLlVHt6QKb3zA%3D&reserved=0<https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/26FSBQWIG7WGMEKEZCVJE5R566BMME7O/>