Dear colleagues, We would like to give you a heads-up about a proposal, currently being considered, to add two new attributes to the aut-num object in the RIPE Database: "import-via:" and "export-via:". In this email we are not concerned with the details of this specific change so much as the fact that a change is being considered. We know that these objects are very important for routing and many of them are updated daily in the RIPE Database. We also know that many scripts exist for auto-generating these objects and processing the contents. Although the RFC for RPSL clearly states that scripts should be written to ignore attributes they don't recognise, we don't know if all scripts are written this way. The RIPE NCC is considering the best ways to get information about any changes to routing object syntax in the RIPE Database out to the people who need to know. We would welcome any feedback on this issue from the community. Regards, Denis Walker Business Analyst RIPE NCC Database Team