Protection of unmaintained person objects referenced from *.de domains was essential because the setup of DENIC database was planned to be done in two phases: first moving domain objects, and then migrating person/role objects.
Yes, I now realize why this was done. I'm not sure I would have done it this way, but what's done is done (cross-database references doesn't strike me as a bright idea -- I would have waited until a complete database was in place at DENIC). However, it appears that the data in the RIPE database has undergone a considerable amount of decay since it was initially submitted. This has over time caused some of the pointers (nic handles) to be used where they shouldn't have been. In particular, I have seen "DENIC-P" pasted on person objects where I'm quite positive that the referenced person have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any domains under .DE. I've noticed this because I've lately been cleaning up the person objects which used to be referenced from the .NO domain objects, and a number of them have now become protected (where they weren't before). I don't know exactly what has caused this data decay; I'm quite positive that the .NO domain registry has always allocated new nic handles using "AUTO-xx" from the day that feature was available. Regards, - Håvard