May 2013 - db-wg - mailman.ripe.net

<auto-dbm@ripe.net> is slow this afternoon.
by RIPE Database Administration 16 May '18

16 May '18

Dear Colleagues, Because of a very high level of use this afternoon, the response time of <auto-dbm(a)ripe.net> is longer than normal. I have made contact with those who are responsible and I expect the situation to improve as the machine works through the queue. Please be patient. Obviously we at the RIPE NCC Database Group are continuously working to make the performance of the database as good as possible. However, we cannot make improvements in zero time. We thank you for your co-operation up to now and we ask for your continued co-operation so that everyone receives the best possible service. If you have anymore questions, please contact <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Regards, Ambrose Magee ____________________________ RIPE Database Administration.

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[training] RIPE NCC Webinars - new dates
by Training Mailbox 29 Aug '13

29 Aug '13

[Apologies for duplicate e-mails] Dear colleagues, We are pleased to announce the launch of new dates for our Webinars for LIRs. The RIPE NCC Webinars are live, one hour online training courses that allow participants to interact with our trainers without leaving their desks. We focus on the topics and issues most important for LIRs. Register now at https://www.ripe.net/lir-services/training/e-learning/webinars Participation is limited to 20 people, so don't hesitate if you want to take part! If you have questions, please email<e-learning(a)ripe.net>. We look forward to seeing you online. Kind regards, RIPE NCC Training Services

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[training] RIPE NCC Training Courses July-September 2013
by Training Team 27 May '13

27 May '13

Dear Colleagues, Our training team travels the RIPE NCC service region to deliver training courses to our members without any additional cost. Over the next few months, we'll be in Rome, Chisinau, Munich, Moscow, Prague, London, Ljubljana, Yerevan, Malmö, Istanbul, Amsterdam. Visit the following page to register and to check which training courses we are giving in your area: https://lirportal.ripe.net/training/courses The RIPE NCC delivers the following training courses: - LIR Training Course - Database Training Course (new) - IPv6 for LIRs Training Course - Routing Security Training Course For more information visit: http://www.ripe.net/lir-services/training/courses With kind regards, Rumy Spratley-Kanis Training Services Manager

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Reminder:Cosmetic Surgery Project, new revised RIPE Policy, document for IPv6 database objects
by Emilio Madaio 21 May '13

21 May '13

Dear colleagues, As part of the Cosmetic Surgery Project, the RIPE NCC is moving forward with a review of the policy document ripe-513, "Value of the "status:" and "assignment-size:" attributes in INET6NUM objects for sub-assigned PA space". At the request of the proposers of the original policy proposal that produced ripe-513, we’re sending a reminder about the document review and inviting the IPv6 Working Group Mailing List and Database Working Group Mailing List subscribers to participate in the review process. A draft of the policy document is now online and ready for community review at: https://www.ripe.net/ripe/readability/improving-the-readability-of-ripe-doc… We encourage you to read the edited draft of ripe-513 and send any comments to <address-policy-wg at ripe.net> by 10 June 2013. Kind Regards, Emilio Madaio Policy Development Officer RIPE NCC

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RIPE 66 Draft minutes
by Nigel Titley 15 May '13

15 May '13

Dear WG For your delight and delectation, please find the draft minutes for the DB-WG meeting at RIPE 66 are attached Comments and corrections to me please Nigel

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Removing personal data from bulk output from the RIPE Database
by Denis Walker 14 May '13

14 May '13

Dear colleagues, We are proposing an improvement to the algorithm used for removing personal data from the bulk provisioning of RIPE Database data. Below you will find an explanation of the current process, why we’re proposing to change it and how the new process would work. ------------------------ Current process ------------------------ At the moment this data is published in three forms: • Complete dump, accessible from: <ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/dbase/ripe.db.gz> • Split dump of each object type, accessible from: <ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/dbase/split/> • A live feed using NRTM protocol, described at: < https://www.ripe.net/data-tools/db/nrtm-mirroring> These data dumps and streams are mainly used for keeping an up-to-date local copy of the RIPE Database or for research and analytical purposes. To prevent the bulk publishing of personal data, for example names, email addresses and phone numbers, we remove all personal data from these datasets. We call this process "dummification of personal data". At the moment it consists of replacing all PERSON and ROLE objects with a single dummy placeholder object as well as changing all references to the personal data objects from all other objects to refer to this dummy placeholder object. ------------------------------------------------- Rationale for Improving the Process -------------------------------------------------- We’ve received feedback from different users and researchers that we are overdoing the dummification. For example, one can obtain all references to personal objects without hitting any personal object result limits by querying the live RIPE Database with proper flags (like -r). This makes the "dummification" of these references in the data dumps meaningless. For more information, see: <http://www.ripe.net/data-tools/support/documentation/aup> ----------------------------------------------------- Proposal for New Dummification Algorithm ----------------------------------------------------- In order to improve the usability of the data dumps and streams, we are proposing to change the "dummification" algorithm to keep the actual personal objects and all references to them and only obfuscate the fields with personal data (for example real names, phone numbers and addresses). The new algorithm will also try to preserve data that is useful for researchers, while not revealing any data that might expose the identity of the date subject. For example, we are proposing to keep the first half of phone number digits or to keep the domain part of email addresses. The proposed changes should not affect any End User scripts currently running because the data will still be in the valid RIPE RPSL format. We propose to run the two datasets in parallel for some time to ensure a smooth transition. Further details and examples of how the dummified objects will change are detailed in a RIPE Labs article at: <https://labs.ripe.net/Members/kranjbar/proposed-improvements-to-dummificati…> Please let us know if you agree with the proposed improvements. Regards, Denis Walker Business Analyst RIPE NCC Database Group

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Re: [db-wg] Removing personal data from bulk output from the RIPE Database
by Tore Anderson 10 May '13

10 May '13

* denis(a)ripe.net > Everyone is correct in what they have said. But when it comes to the > "changed:" attribute you have to rely on assumptions, estimates and 'good > enough' because the dates are not precisely defined. It is possible 90% of > changed dates are spot on, but you don't know that. > > No one would suggest that anyone would deliberately enter the wrong date. > And of course if you don't add a date the software will generate the > correct date for you. But if you wrote a template some time ago for > creating assignments and that template has a date in it, then everytime > you fill in the template to create a new assignment, it will have the > wrong date. Or if you 'change' the date on a single "changed:" attribute > every time you update the object, it will only show the 'last updated' > date. Or as Kaveh pointed out, maybe the object was created 10 years ago, > but you updated the information last week, without altering the changed > date. Do you consider the object to be stale data? There are so many ways > this date can represent something different to what you assume it to be. So while I have no illusions about that I'd get an exact number from looking at the "changed:" attribute, what I was really trying to say is that tried to use the database dumps on ftp.ripe.net for some purpose, but due to excessive dummification I couldn't. Hence I support the proposal to reduce the amount of dummification. Whether or not my desired query would stand up to any "scientific" scrutiny is really besides the point. That said, going slightly off topic wrt. the proposal itself: I'm still no closer to finding an answer to my question, which could be stated as: «How many IPv4 PA Assignments have been made by RIPE NCC LIRs since the 14th of September 2012? (If possible, but less important: How many addresses did these assignments consist of, in total?)» Even a very rough estimation is useful to me. Even just the order of magnitude would be interesting. "A dozen", "about five thousands", or "hundreds of thousands" - these are all results I could put in my slides to underline the point I want to make. While I think the use of the "changed:" attribute I originally planned would give me a useful enough result, I'm in no way married to that particular approach. So if there's some other way to get the number, possibly by having any of you RIPE NCC guys fetch it for me from some internal data source, that would be much appreciated! :-) I'd need it before Wednesday (well, preferably ASAP) if I'm going to be able to make use of it though. > As Kaveh also pointed out, you can query an object with the > '--list-versions' option and get a more accurate, reliable list of dates > for when an object was created and each update. But if you want to find > which PA assignments were created within a time period, you would have to > query them all to get the accurate historical dates. There are 3.7 million > assignment objects. For this type of analysis it might be easier if the > split file had a well defined date(s) you could rely on. No, I really wouldn't want to script 3.7M queries to your whois server...having an auto-generated "created:" attribute in the dumps (and in the whois service too for that matter) would certainly be better. Tore

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Re: [db-wg] Removing personal data from bulk output from the RIPE Database
by James A. T. Rice 09 May '13

09 May '13

On Thu, 9 May 2013, denis(a)ripe.net wrote: > The "changed:" attribute is almost useless. Disagree, it gave a good indication of how stale an object was likely to be. If an object is is 15 years old, one wouldn't be too surprised if it's inaccurate. If it's from last month, then it's a lot more likely to be accurate. Cheers James

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Re: [db-wg] Removing personal data from bulk output from the RIPE Database
by Tore Anderson 09 May '13

09 May '13

* denis(a)ripe.net > Unfortunately no dump will help you with this process. The "changed:" > attribute is almost useless. For what you want to do it IS useless. The > syntax requires all objects to have at least one mandatory "changed:" > attribute. The user can set the date to almost anything. It can be > tomorrow or ten years ago. When the object is changed, there is no > requirement to make any changes to this date or add any additional > "changed:" attributes. It is user generated and only has meaning to the > user. What you want to do would only work if these were auto generated > timestamps by the update software. But that is not the case. That may be so. But to turn it around - are you of the opinion that the LIRs to a great extent are deliberately supplying incorrect changed dates? If "no", it would be good enough for me, really. For my uses, an approximation will suffice. To be honest, I would actually be more concerned about the number being wrong because of LIRs assigning addresses to their customers without registering the assignments in the database, than I would be about LIRs registering their assignments, but with incorrect dates. BTW - the update software *does* generate time stamps. At least, I always send only my e-mail address, the bot does the rest. Tore

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Re: [db-wg] Removing personal data from bulk output from the RIPE Database
by Tore Anderson 09 May '13

09 May '13

(Apologies for breaking threading, I just subscribed to the list.) In general, the proposal seems fine to me and I agree with its goals. In preparing for my APWG presentation next week, I've been wanting to find the answer to the question «how many IPv4 PA Assignments have been registered between dates A and B?». I thought I could do this by examining the inetnum database export - but that didn't work out, due to the fact that all the "changed:" attributes gets rewritten to "unread‌‌(a)ripe.net 20000101". So while I don't care about the e-mail addresses, I'd need the dates to be left intact. Also, the current algorithm folds all changed attributes into a single one. It's not clear from the Labs article whether or not this practise will stop - I hope it will. Would it by any chance be possible to get a sneak preview of the new inetnum dump, so that I could find the numbers I want before heading to Dublin? If so that would be greatly appreciated! Best regards, Tore Anderson

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