On Oct 15, 2005, at 3:43 AM, Randy Bush wrote:
and, in this reality, some paper from a government agency seems both unnecessary and unhelpful in trusting the identity of an lir. we trust them enough to have a clearly tracable financial transaction.
So, maybe my understanding of the process/content of billing in RIPE- land is deficient. A "clearly traceable financial transaction" sounds a lot more confidence inspiring "any financial transaction at all, so long as it arrives on time" (e.g., anonymous money order from 7-11, etc.). What does RIPE require that the transaction be clearly traceable to? If it's something that anchors net-identity to some stable, persistent, contactable institution, then maybe that's enough. Can someone share details?
do we have the right to tell them how they must do business?
I'm glad to have a friend in the society of sophists :) I think we do have a right to tell them they have to identity themselves in some way in order to *go into* the business, and to expect that that information remains accurate over time. If we don't have the right to expect stable/transparent identification at at least the LIR/ASN level, then is there another practical, scalable, fair way to secure end-points? If there isn't, don't we have a right to declare that such identification is required for the greater good of all? The only rights we really enjoy are the ones that we've declared this way, and then fought to protect and enforce. Right now operators in some places enjoy the de-facto option of complete or selective anonymity (i.e., no one but my friends may recognize me, and only to the degree chosen by me; who my friends are are determined by me on a transaction-by-transaction basis, subject to modification at any time) I've never heard this declared as a right. Is it? Tom