On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 michael.dillon@bt.com wrote:
As a result, most people consider William Leibzon and the Bogon project to be, collectively, the authoritative source for information on whose IP address that is. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If that's the case, all hope has been lost.
That's because William and the Bogon project, act authoritative, and take some pains to provide comprehensive data. At the same time, IANA and the RIRs just keep doing the same old thing as their data and systems slowly rot away.
Why doesn't IANA operate a whois server? Why should they? What will it produce?
Why don't they publish a more detailled explanation field in each IANA allocation record so that they can explain the precise status of each block? Why should they?
Why doesn't IANA and the RIRs collectively get off their butts and actually make an "authoritative IP address allocation directory" one of their goals?
And why don't they do all this with some 21st century technology? Why doesn't vwl help by giving ARIN his changelog, if any?
-alex