All, On Tue, Mar 19, 2019 at 01:41:22PM +0100, Marco Schmidt wrote:
A new RIPE Policy proposal, 2019-03, "BGP Hijacking is a RIPE Policy Violation", is now available for discussion. The goal of this proposal is to define that BGP hijacking is not accepted as normal practice within the RIPE NCC service region.
You can find the full proposal at: https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2019-03
there has been a trend in recent years to make RIPE policy that transforms the NCC from a resource registry into a political agency to monitor and prescribe the behaviour of the internet industry in the RIPE Service Region by weaponising the NCC Service Agreement. This I consider harmful to the standing of the RIPE NCC as an impartial, non-political resource registry. The major point, even if you accept that the NCC has a mandate to act as a regulatory authority - which I want to state unequivocally here that I do NOT - against this proposal is that it is ineffective and a waste of time and membership funding: 1. The procedures for policy violations in the RIPE NCC are restorative rather than retributive. If the NCC determines that a policy violation has occurred, the "offender" is given an opportunity to rectify the situation, if they do so the case is closed. Only if the "offender" refuses to cooperate or is not contactable is any further action taken. 2. "Resource hijacks" are transient in nature. They persist, generally, only until the "offender's" neighbours take action. Yet, 2019-03 proposes a long, convoluted, costly process involving "experts", reports, appeals and the NCC Board. By the time this process has run its course, the "resource hijack" in question will have long faded from memory. So the end result of this proposed process is that the "offender" gets a report which it will, in all likelihood, consign to the round archive (ie the recycling bin). 3. The time of the NCC staff and the Board will have been wasted. So will have NCC funding which we, as the Membership have to provide. The "experts" will in all likelihood not work for free either, indeed a cynic could argue that the main effect of this proposal is to let some "experts" dip their beak into NCC funds. 4. I want to forestall the inevitable argument here that "we can make policy to have those evildoers thrown out of the NCC later!". No, you can't. The SSA and its contents are solely the domain of the NCC Membership and I sincerely hope that that body will refuse to ratify any proposal that opens themselves to the loss of the services of a monopoly provider on the say-so of some activist randomers on a mailing list. I know which way I would vote. 5. If there is still any doubt, the above constitutes strenuous opposition to 2019-03. rgds, Sascha Luck