Re everybody, following up to some personal talks during the RIPE meeting I propose an automatic cleanup of orphaned person and role objects in the RIPE DB. Motivation ---------- In the light of data privacy issues raised by governmental organizations and in RIPE Database Working Group sessions during RIPE-39 and RIPE-40, as well as following the Great Dangling Person Objects Deletion after de.* ccTLD move-out I propose an automized garbage collection procedure to remove personal data that is unreferenced for a certain amount of time. Proposed Change --------------- An additional attibute ``expire:'' with two values should be added to all person and role objects. The values to this attribute would be a reference counter and a modification timestamp. The reference counter would contain the number of objects still refering to this object, and thus be analog to the link counter of an inode in a UNIX file system. The modification timestamp would be updated whenever the object is updated or the link counter changes. The analogy in the UNIX file system would be sort of a mix of ctime and mtime. Both values could be combined into a single value, but each value of it's own may be of interest to some people. Combining both values would leave the resulting value useless to human interpretation. A garbage collection process running on a periodic basis should then delete all objects with a reference counter of ``0'' and a modification timestamp of more than e.g. 8000000 seconds (approx. 3 month) ago. The expiration period is to be discussed and agreed upon in the community. An additional switch to the whois client should be added to make the otherwise invisible attribute visible, the DB should consequently not accept ``expire:'' attributes in updates. (The DB could certainly be made more forgiving about this, but since the move to v.3 tightened the syntax we should probably not weaken it again.) Database Objects affected ------------------------- An additional attribute would be added to all person and role objects. role: [mandatory] [single] [lookup key] address: [mandatory] [multiple] [ ] phone: [optional] [multiple] [ ] fax-no: [optional] [multiple] [ ] e-mail: [mandatory] [multiple] [lookup key] trouble: [optional] [multiple] [ ] admin-c: [mandatory] [multiple] [inverse key] tech-c: [mandatory] [multiple] [inverse key] nic-hdl: [mandatory] [single] [primary/look-up key] remarks: [optional] [multiple] [ ] notify: [optional] [multiple] [inverse key] mnt-by: [optional] [multiple] [inverse key] expire: [generated] [single] [ ] changed: [mandatory] [multiple] [ ] source: [mandatory] [single] [ ] person: [mandatory] [single] [lookup key] address: [mandatory] [multiple] [ ] phone: [mandatory] [multiple] [ ] fax-no: [optional] [multiple] [ ] e-mail: [optional] [multiple] [lookup key] nic-hdl: [mandatory] [single] [primary/look-up key] remarks: [optional] [multiple] [ ] notify: [optional] [multiple] [inverse key] mnt-by: [optional] [multiple] [inverse key] expire: [generated] [single] [ ] changed: [mandatory] [multiple] [ ] source: [mandatory] [single] [ ] Example ------- inetnum: 10.0.0.0 - 10.0.255.255 netname: XMAS descr: Santa's Workshop Inc. Christmas Toys Manufacturing Facility Northern Nowhere country: NN admin-c: SC12-RIPE tech-c: SWT95-RIPE status: ASSIGNED PA mnt-by: SANTA-SECURITY-MNT changed: jbgood@antarctic.nn 19960412 source: RIPE role: Santa Workshop Team address: Santa's Workshop Inc. Jingle Bell Lane 12 1224CH Christmastown Northern Nowhere phone: +12 12 122 3333 fax-no: +12 12 221 4444 e-mail: team@antarctic.nn admin-c: SC12-RIPE tech-c: SC12-RIPE tech-c: RD212-RIPE nic-hdl: SWT95-RIPE mnt-by: SANTA-SECURITY-MNT expire: 1 849700000 changed: jbgood@antarctic.nn 19960412 source: RIPE person: Santa A. Claus address: Santa's Workshop Inc. Jingle Bell Lane 12 1224CH Christmastown Northern Nowhere phone: +12 12 122 2121 +12 12 122 2211 ext. 1221 fax-no: +12 12 221 1212 e-mail: santa@antarctic.nn nic-hdl: SC12-RIPE mnt-by: SANTA-SECURITY-MNT expire: 3 849700000 changed: jbgood@antarctic.nn 19960412 source: RIPE person: Rudolf R N Reindeer address: Santa's Workshop Inc. Jingle Bell Lane 21 1224CH Christmastown Northern Nowhere phone: +12 12 122 1111 fax-no: +12 12 122 2222 nic-hdl: RD212-RIPE e-mail: rudolf@xmas.nn mnt-by: SANTA-SECURITY-MNT expire: 1 849700000 changed: jbgood@antarctic.nn 19960412 source: RIPE -- Ulf Kieber email: kieber@gatel.net Senior Network Engineer voice: +49-69-299896-21 Global Access Telecommunications, Inc. fax : +49-69-299896-40 internet solutions for business www : www.gatel.net The Database Toothbrush Proposal