Leo Vegoda <leo.vegoda@icann.org> wrote
"Revoked" must be clearly visible.
I disagree. I do not think the registry should publish a comment on why a registration exists or does not exist and the word REVOKED is clearly intended to imply that the registration was removed against the desires of the registrant.
On those - increasing number of - occasions when an RIR discovers that information it was given in support of a registration, was untruthful or invalid then it seems to me entirely reasonable that the RIR should make it clear that what it had previously published, should not be relied upon.
Publishing a registration (a positive act) but giving it a negative status is likely to cause confusion, especially with automated network-centric systems that ignore the status attribute value.
There will surely be technical solutions to that technical problem.
I also think the example you give is unrealistic. If the ISP can see its own object and a bunch of other objects then the problem is unlikely to be that to be that the whois database is broken.
It's very realistic. Nobody would be suggesting that the "whole database is broken". What would be suggested is that some records are missing or the database has not been updated. That would not necessarily affect the records of the ISP querying the database, as its own record would probably be significantly older.
If some kind of mechanism is needed to allow network operators to check that a prefix is not currently registered, then we should ask the RIPE NCC to publish an easy to parse list of prefixes and the date on which they were removed from the database. Presumably a prefix would remain on the list until it had completed any quarantine period and is ready to be re-issued.
We have been asking for exactly that for some years now, partly to allow reputational records to be reset as and when an allocation is recovered. -- Richard