[ Apologies for duplicate messages ] Dear colleagues, "cross-nfy:" and "cross-mnt:" attributes will be deprecated in the RIPE Whois Database by 1 February 2004. The RIPE Whois Database previously had a cross notification mechanism. This mechanism used "cross-nfy:" and "cross-mnt:" attributes of route and aut-num objects to notify particular maintainers and contacts when an overlapping route object had been added or removed. In May 2003, this mechanism was deprecated, as it is already covered by Routing Policy System Security functionality. In March 2003, the proposal was circulated to deprecate "cross-nfy:" and "cross-mnt:" attributes in the RIPE Whois Database as they are no longer needed: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail-archives/db-wg/2003/msg00035.html Approximately 180 aut-num and 620 route objects will be affected by this change. These objects should be modified before 1 February 2003 and the "cross-nfy:" and/or "cross-mnt:" attributes should be removed from them. As soon as these attributes have been deprecated, they will not be accepted in the RIPE Whois Database. Therefore, we encourage everyone to make the necessary modifications in advance. The RIPE Database Administration will update the objects still requiring modifications to change deprecated attributes into "remarks:" attributes. No individual notifications will be sent. Relevant maintainers will be notified via the usual RIPE Whois Database notification mechanism. This information can be found at: http://www.ripe.net/db/cross_nfy_mnt_deprecation.html -- Katie Petrusha Software Engineering Department RIPE NCC