Monday, May 26, 2008

.CA Internet Registry, right direction or wrong move?

June 10th is when Canada Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) turns off the switch for allowing individuals to view the associated information related to any new .CA, or Canadian domains names.

I think it's great that CIRA is keeping the privacy of individuals in mind. This should curb spam to some extent and as well in some cases reduce the likely hood of social engineering. The other potential benefit which they are stating is that this change will entice the use of the country code to Canadians, rather than the other available or more common domain names.

But I would like to bring up a different perspective where this isn't such a great idea. In the course or conducting a forensic investigation this is an essential tool used by information security professionals and law enforcement.

Now I believe that a process is in place where only certain agencies can access this database, but that could potentially exclude the vast majority of those who use it for conducting good, and who rely on the tool in delivering their services.

There's always a better way and a happy medium needs to be reached. Perhaps one where sites are classified as either personal or business oriented. Those of a personal nature can benefit from this new policy, those that are businesses usually have this information located on the 'contact us' portion of a Web site and should no preoccupy themselves with this issue.

Raoul Gomes

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