Topic
WHOIS/RDAP Accountability
Within the Topic facet, WHOIS/RDAP Accountability topic intelligence connects articles that share a specific subject, signal focus, or monitoring theme. The page gives readers a richer path through related reporting, source evidence, market actors, and infrastructure implications, with enough context to understand why the topic matters across company movements, governance decisions, regional exposure, and operational risk. Readers can compare recurring signals, affected organisations, public evidence, market context, service continuity, procurement, competition, compliance, and strategic planning questions behind the subject instead of stopping at a thin list of matching articles. It explains what the topic covers, which infrastructure actors or policies are involved, what evidence supports the coverage, and why the subject may matter for operators, customers, investors, and policy readers.
Leaders
Leo Vegoda Wants the New RDAP Desk to Tell Everyone the Same Story
A registry can point a lookup to someone else's server. Leo Vegoda's question at RIPE 93 was what happens after the handoff: will that server show the registry one record and the rest of the Internet another?
Story
RIPE Logged a U.S. Recipient. The /20 Stayed in RIPE’s Book.
A 30 October transfer moved 4,096 IPv4 addresses to a U.S.-registered company. RIPE filed it as an internal transfer, and its live database still holds the record.
Story
RIPE Replaced the Database Cookie. Then the Web App Ran Out of Sockets.
The new login reached the RIPE Database website in September. A connection leak then stopped its web application for minutes while neighbouring database services kept running.
Story
APNIC Promises Public Bulk RDAP. The Access Rules Are Still Missing.
APNIC plans to make bulk RDAP data public in 2026. Its current bulk Whois page still asks for a signed use agreement. The difference matters to anyone building a reliable picture of who holds Internet number resources—and the council minutes leave the terms of the new door…
Story
Nearly 15 Months After RIPE NCC’s RDAP Promise, ENUM Still Gets a 501
RIPE NCC said in August 2025 that its database team would add e164.arpa to RDAP. On 1 November 2026, queries for the zone and a country-code branch still returned “Not Implemented”; the October update said work had progressed, but named no release date.
Story
A New RDAP Draft Adds Six IRR Paths. Three Stay Optional.
A 29 October Internet-Draft from authors at RIPE NCC and ARIN sketches a JSON route for six Internet Routing Registry entity types. Its own text leaves three families—and a bundle of route-policy fields—to each server’s choice.
Story
ARIN Chose RDAP. Port 43 Still Has No Retirement Date
ARIN’s new directory-services roadmap replaces one sunset calendar with four separate readiness tests. Port 43 WHOIS, still used across security and research, now has no fixed retirement date.
Story
RIPE’s WHOIS Light Went Green. Which Edits Got Through?
The registry marked an intermittent update fault fixed and resolved in under half an hour on 28 October. Its public clock says when the service recovered, not what happened to each attempted edit.
Story
AFRINIC’s Reverse-DNS Rule Meets the Delete Key
An operator says the database makes him remove reverse-domain records before he can repair the address records that justify them. A tidy rule has acquired a messy exit.
IETF
The RDAP Redirect Can Deliver the Record and Drop the Question
A registry-data query can reach the right server and still lose the instruction that shaped the question. The current IETF working-group draft on RDAP extensions draws that line deliberately: a server issuing a cross-authority redirect cannot simply copy the original query string…
ICANN
First in Line, Short on Cash: ICANN’s Four-TLD Dropzone Has a Second Rule
Jolly Host wants to move expiring names in four top-level domains into a parallel application queue. The application calls it first come, first served. Its next sentence supplies the other rule: when the first registrar lacks enough money in its registry account, the name goes to…
Story
The Address Book Can Name the Network. The Subscriber Is Another Matter.
In 2025, law-enforcement agencies sent RIPE NCC 99 requests. Eighty-one asked it to identify Internet users behind particular IP addresses. RIPE NCC’s own report says it did not have that information. The number is a neat reminder that an address registry and an ISP’s customer…
Story
No Email, No Address, No Services: ARIN’s Twelve-Month Clock
ARIN has separated 2,660 organization records with no user contact details from a much larger queue of holders it can reach but still needs to verify. One group loses services and enters a year-long hold; the other gets targeted outreach and successor research.
ICANN
The privacy service left the building. GAC still wants the registrar to answer
A domain complaint can reach the registrar while the customer details sit with another company. Governments want the handoff to have an owner, especially when the clock is running.
Leaders
Tsungyi Yu Asked Whois for Directions. APNIC Pointed to RDAP.
His proposal wanted a query to follow an address across registry borders. APNIC's answer was awkwardly specific: another directory already knew the route, though it could arrive two days late.
Leaders
Tomohiro Fujisaki Wanted Whois to Remember Ports. By Draft Four, the Ports Were Gone.
Two homes could share one IPv4 address while living on different port ranges. Fujisaki and Ruri Hiromi asked a registry directory to tell them apart. The idea grew smaller as the bill for keeping it accurate came into view.
Leaders
Leif Sawyer Wanted WHOIS to Name the Company, Not Your Kitchen Table
When a network breaks, the public address book must lead somewhere useful. Sawyer helped turn that plain demand into ARIN policy while deciding whose details belong on the page.
Leaders
John Curran Tried to Retire Port 43. The Old Door Won Another Shift.
ARIN wanted one modern directory protocol. Then users explained what still walked through the old one. John Curran’s signed response turned a retirement timetable into a test of whether the replacement works outside the registry’s own building.
Story
ARIN's new directory key is missing one tooth
The Whois-RWS API has a July 2027 exit on the calendar. Its replacement still needs to find the smaller address records hiding inside a larger block.
Story
Port 43 got 43 comments. Twenty-four told ARIN to slow down
ARIN planned a tidy retirement for old-fashioned Whois. Its own meeting slides reveal an untidy guest list: most substantive commenters pushed back, and the busiest apparent users hide behind cloud-provider addresses.