On May 9, 2013, at 5:52 PM, James A. T. Rice <james_r-ripelist@jump.org.uk> wrote:

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.

Hi James,

It is true in case one sees a recent date on a "changed:" attribute, but it is not possible to draw any conclusion on last update date for an object if the date is old.

Adding additional "changed:" attributes has always been optional, one might have included one when creating the object and then never added or updated it for further updates. The "--list-versions" whois query option is much more accurate for that purpose.

Although as Tore detailed his requirements I think "changed:" attribute has enough accuracy for his purpose. As it is shown in the examples for the new dummification proposal (https://labs.ripe.net/Members/kranjbar/proposed-improvements-to-dummification-of-personal-data-in-the-ripe-database), with the new model we are proposing to keep the changed lines and their dates while obfuscating the domain part of email addresses.

Regards,

Kaveh.

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Kaveh Ranjbar,

RIPE NCC Database Group Manager