Hello all, (Please do not distribute this email) We had a LEA presentation during LACNIC 26 in Costa Rica. I helped coordinate the talk acting as liaison for a representative of the DEA, Mr. Thomas Walden and our staff. The plan all along was that the DEA would try to have two LEA agencies from the region deliver the actual presentation. In the end this proved difficult to achieve and Mr. Walden attended the event with a Costa Rican Police representative. Fine so far. However, the actual delivery of the talk was, in my opinion, quite poor and the overall message was definitely lost. The Costa Rican representative spoke little or no English at all. Mr. Walden did not speak Spanish. Both seemed quite frustrated with the whole situation. A colleague of mine and myself tried to interpret for them, but since we became aware of this situation less than 45 minutes before the slot’s time it didn’t make much of a difference. Mr. Walden’s presentation was clear and well prepared. However, the presentation from the CR police was mostly a generic description of a kidnapping case they had worked on, which, while interesting from a True Crime TV series perspective, failed to connect the dots with Mr. Walden’s presentation. The conclusions from this kidnapping case presentation were mostly ‘run of the mill’, in the sense of highlighting how important it is for LEAs to be ICT-literate and how collaboration among LEAs is important. No mention was made about how IP addresses or domains or WHOiS lookups either helped or hindered their investigation. So, a few takeaways from this experience: - When helping LEAs coordinating these talks, we need to stress to them that they need to explicitly highlight what they expect from these communities. Accurate WHOIS? Bulk access? simpler automation of queries? please say so. Only mentioning a global policy about WHOIS is just not good enough. - When they designate their speakers, we need to ensure that they will be able to work together. From what I saw in APNIC42, the result was a lot better, but even in that case I believe the message could have been delivered more clearly. I am convinced that we need to work together with LEAs and help them do their job. I appreciate that they took the initiative and approached our community. It’s just that we also need to help them be more effective. I hope you find these notes helpful. Thanks! -Carlos