sjsobol@nacs.NET (Steven J. Sobol) writes:

So, what do you suggest as an alternative?

Other than not having power outages in Herndon, VA? :-) Instead of worrying about passing Cisco's certification test just so I'm allowed to sell more Cisco hardware (as if Cisco really needs the money), I sometimes think I should start an independent certification firm to go around and certify "critical infrastructure" around the net. Hint: Your emergency phone number should not be routed through your main PBX. Anyone care to discuss setting up that emergency phone thing again in case you can't look up other NOC's phone numbers in WHOIS? (Inside joke, I'm just venting this morning...) Back to the subject at hand. I have a concept of Information Entropy. Essentially all information turns into chaos unless a lot of energy is expended to keep it organized. Maybe I just work with too many librarians all day long, but I don't see the value in adding more contacts when the current contact information isn't kept up to date. SRI and even BBN each undertook projects in the past to keep the contact information up to date. But so far the current custodian has indicated they don't believe it was in the job description. Nor do I think setting up yet another directory service is the answer. Look at the phone companies each starting their own directory companies giving out three year old information at $1 a query. Yes, several people have set up contact web pages, and there are several efforts to put contact information in DNS (along with everything else). Peering agreements have language saying each providing will provide contact information. Fact of the matter, there is no penalty or pain for not making up-to-date technical contact information available to other providers. Nor is their any penalty or pain for not maintaining any of the "standard" contact methods. On the other hand, there also doesn't seem to be any penalty or pain for making a false report to an official contact method. So those providers that attempt to do the right thing are quickly overwhelmed by the vigilantes. Suggestions: 1) First figure out why providers don't keep their current contact information up to date. 2) Make it a security and fraud issue. This isn't a legal list, go talk to your lawyer why that is important when competitors decided to do something. 3) Only if the reason is providers will handle the messages differently should additional contacts be listed. If most providers are going to aliases them all to the customer service blackhole, its just a waste of effort, time and space. I would rather spend the effort, time and space keeping one contact up to date. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation