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30 Years Ago Today
by Daniel Karrenberg 03 Apr '22

03 Apr '22

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Get Certified at SEE 10
by RIPE NCC Certified Professionals 31 Mar '22

31 Mar '22

Dear colleagues, You can now get certified at our upcoming events! We are happy to offer you the opportunity to take a RIPE NCC Certified Professionals exam during SEE 10 (11-12 April) and at RIPE 84 (16-20 May). A dedicated exam room equipped with a laptop will be available at the meeting venue. You can choose to take any of our three exams: - RIPE Database Associate - IPv6 Fundamentals - Analyst - IPv6 Security Expert ---------------------------- Book a slot at SEE 10 ---------------------------- - You need to register in advance to take an exam at SEE 10. Registration closes on Friday, 8 April. - Exam slots are available on first-come, first-served basis. - Exams can be scheduled to begin between 9:00 - 17:00 (UTC+2) on Monday, 11 April, and Tuesday, 12 April respectively. - Each exam takes a maximum of 60 minutes, with an additional 15 minutes required for checks prior to the exam. You can request an exam slot by sending an email to <exams(a)ripe.net>. The exams team will share additional information including your exam booking code. ---------------------------- Already certified? ---------------------------- Have you already earned a RIPE NCC Certified Professionals badge? We’ll be happy to hand over your well-deserved t-shirt or hoodie at SEE 10! Simply send us an email and let us know which badge you earned, and in which size you would prefer to receive an official RIPE NCC Certified Professionals t-shirt or hoodie. Planning to join us at RIPE 84 in Berlin? Start studying and stay tuned for more details! If you have any questions, please do get in touch. Kind regards, The Exams Team RIPE NCC Certified Professionals

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"Keep Ukraine Connected" initiative - follow up!
by Jan Zorz - Go6 30 Mar '22

30 Mar '22

Dear RIPE community, Kudos to everyone that responded and contributed to our initiative to help Ukraine operators to keep people connected, we are positively surprised how many of you contacted us and are willing to help! You all know who you are! We currently have a lot of equipment coming in. Again - thank you, everyone! To help us process everything we have implemented a supply and demand database. Requesters and donors can both create accounts to access the database. Then anyone who wants to send something to us can enter this in database, and registered requesters can see directly what is available and lay claim to it. We are currently planning the next trip to Ukraine to hand over all the donated equipment. We plan to leave Berlin in early April to collect additional equipment in Prague. Then we will head towards Ljubljana, Slovenia, to pick up more donations and also take part in the RIPE SEE10 meeting. Finally, we will head towards Krakow and stay for the night before driving towards whichever of the Ukrainian border stations in Hlynytsi, Krakowez or Lviv will take us, and hand over our collected hardware on site. If you still have equipment that you would like to donate, please send an email to: ukraine(a)nogalliance.org to get access to our database. https://nogalliance.org/our-task-forces/keep-ukraine-connected/ Cheers and thnx, Jan Žorž on behalf of GNA/KUC team

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2021 IANA Numbering Services Review Committee Report Published
by Boris Duval 24 Mar '22

24 Mar '22

This message is sent on behalf of the Number Resource Organization (NRO). *** The IANA Numbering Services Review Committee (IANA RC) is pleased to announce that it has published the 2021 IANA Numbering Services Review Committee Report. The IANA RC was formed in 2016 and is responsible for publishing an annual report as advice to the NRO EC for its evaluation of the IANA numbering services. This report follows a 30-day public comment period on the IANA Performance Matrix Summary Report published by the RIRs seeking input from the broader community. This report is based on the 2021 IANA Performance Matrix Summary Report, as well as on any input gathered from the global number community. The 2021 IANA Numbering Services Review Committee Report is published at: https://www.nro.net/2021-IANA-RC-Report The IANA RC noted that no incidents were reported in the IANA Numbering services to the RIRs in 2021. *** Best Regards, Boris Duval Communications Officer RIPE NCC

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"Keep Ukraine Connected" initiative
by Jan Zorz - Go6 16 Mar '22

16 Mar '22

Dear RIPE community, Apology in advance for possible duplicates of this information and/or long email :) At GNA (Global NOG Alliance) we started a new initiative (or a task force) called "Keep Ukraine Connected", aiming at mobilizing global technical community to support Ukrainian operators and community with donating and delivering hardware that they need to keep the light on and Internet connectivity available in the country. https://nogalliance.org/our-task-forces/keep-ukraine-connected/ This is a completely non political initiative that is just aimed to help keeping the information accessible to people in distress. We at GNA are in close contact with The Ukrainian Internet Association (UIA) and National Commission for the State Regulation of electronic communications, radiofrequency spectrum and the provision of postal services amd also with their association of business ISPs. They are coordinating the effort on their side with operators and people on the ground, providing us with the current needs. This is a partial list of what we are looking for right now: Specific requests: Wifi Soho (TP-Link, Netis, Mikrotik, etc) Wi-fi Backbone/Backhole (Mikrotik, Mimosa, Ubiquiti) Access switches (PoE preferred) (Any brand) Core switches (Any brand) Power generators (Any brand) General needs: Starlink satellite systems Wifi access points Wifi P2P systems Routers Switches Fiber repair tools (splicers, cleavers) Q/SFP modules Servers Walkie-Talkies It's probably redundant to stress out that all donated equipment needs to be in full working order, because people on the ground does not have time to figure out how to repair stuff at the moment. We are also accepting money donations at the web page mentioned above that will be used for some costs of logistics of transport and also to buy the most needed equipment that we'll not get through hardware donations from the community that we are collecting at warehouse in Germany. How will this work? We have access to a truck based in Germany, and volunteer drivers. We will coordinate filling the truck with the technology bought with your donations, along with the donations of network equipment we have received from the community, then drive that truck to the Ukraine border. Our chair, René Fichtmüller, has already made the journey once — albeit with a more regular cargo of donations. For all questions and/or suggestions, please send an email to ukraine(a)nogalliance.org. We appreciate anything you can do to help out. Thank you! Best, Jan Žorž on behalf of Global NOG alliance and our contacts in Ukraine

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Last call and final reminder for nominations to the 2022 Rob Blokzijl Award
by Carsten Schiefner 14 Mar '22

14 Mar '22

[Apologies for cross-posting to various RIPE lists] Dear RIPE community members - this is the last call and final reminder for nominations to the 2022 Rob Blokzijl Award that will be accepted until this Friday, 18th March, at 23:59 UTC. In seeking nominations for this prestigious award, which was created to celebrate Rob's contributions to the development of the Internet, the Award Committee (https://rob-blokzijl-foundation.org/2021/11/22/2022-award-committee/) is interested to receive nominations of those who have reflected Rob's approach in either a technical or operational capacity. Please give some consideration to nominating individuals - but also teams and groups of people! - in your own community and/or the wider industry in the RIPE region who, in your opinion, deserve to be recognised for their work to make the internet and/or internet community better. To specifically have this emphasised again after some according queries: nominations of teams and groups of people are very well possible and wished for as well in case their collective work would match the criteria of the call as laid out! The Award Committee is particularly interested to receive nominations of contributors who, in addition to their own contributions, have also supported and enabled others anywhere in the world. Also, the Award Committee would like to encourage those making nominations to consider not only the community members in the later stages of their careers or who are widely known but also those who may have contributed greatly in the springtime of their career or discreetly for the greater good or who may be considered to be part of an unrepresented group. And last but not least: those of you who previously have made a nomination other than Wilfried Woeber, the 2018 awardee, may want to consider resubmitting a nomination. The complete details of the call and the nomination process can be found at: https://rob-blokzijl-foundation.org/2021/11/25/call-for-nominations-2022/ Best wishes and kind regards Carsten (on behalf of the Award Committee)

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Notice to the ASO Community on Rejection Action to ICANN Board Resolution on IANA FY23 Budget
by Antony Gollan 14 Mar '22

14 Mar '22

This message is sent on behalf of the Number Resource Organization (NRO). *** Notice to the ASO Community on Rejection Action to ICANN Board Resolution on IANA FY23 Budget 14 March 2022 Dear RIR Community, On 24 February 2022, the ICANN Board of Directors approved the IANA FY23 Budget. The resolution approving the FY23 IANA Budget is available at: https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2022-02-24-en#2.a. The approved IANA FY23 Operating Plan and Budget is available at: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/iana-fy23-operating-plan-budget… This resolution (FY23 IANA Budget) is subject to Rejection Action Petitions from the community. As a Decisional Participant, the Address Supporting Organization received a notice from the ICANN Secretary pursuant to Section 22.4(a)(v) of the ICANN Bylaws: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/bylaws-en/#article22 Reception of this notice triggered a 21-day period during which any member of the ASO community can submit a rejection petition on the matter. If you would like to submit a Rejection Action Petition to the ASO, please consult Section 2 of Annex D of the ICANN Bylaws for the requirements that must be met by a Rejection Action Petition: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/bylaws-en/#annexD This 21-day period commenced on 9 March 2022 and will end at 06:59 (UTC) on 31 March 2022. Any Rejection Action Petition should be sent to the ASO Secretariat (secretariat [at] aso.icann.org) before the deadline. Kind regards, ASO Secretariat *** Regards Antony Gollan Communications Team Manager RIPE NCC

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Fwd: RIPE Community session on proposed revised PDP - Minutes and draft version 2
by Mirjam Kuehne 11 Mar '22

11 Mar '22

Dear colleagues, Many thanks to those who provided comments so far. You can still provide feedback before the deadline on 16 March 2022. Kind regards, Mirjam ------- Original Message ------- On Wednesday, February 16th, 2022 at 14:44, Mirjam Kuehne<mir(a)zu-hause.nl> wrote: > Dear colleagues, > > On 26 January we held an online meeting to gather feedback about the > > revised Policy Development Process (PDP). The recordings, minutes and > > slides can be found here: > > https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/ripe-community-plenary/minutes/revise… > > Below you can find a short summary of the main points discussed at the > > meeting. Based on this feedback we adjusted the draft document and > > created a new red-lined version: > > https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/polic… > > Please review the changes carefully and provide any additional feedback > > before 16 March 2022. > > Kind regards, > > Mirjam Kühne > > ============ > > Meeting Summary: > > The overall sentiment was to rely on community consensus and common > > sense as much as possible and to keep formalism at a minimum. > > 1. Author and Ownership of the Document > > There was general agreement to make a distinction between the author and > > owner of the PDP: the community should be listed as owner of the PDP and > > the RIPE Chair as the author of the document. [1] > > 2. Scope of the Document > > There was agreement to shorten the introduction of the document to > > clarify that the PDP only refers to policy. There was also agreement to > > keep the section about values and principles. > > 3. Changes to PDP > > Most people agreed that the scope of the Policy Development Process > > should be limited to creating policy. It should not be used to change > > the PDP itself or other RIPE governance documents. It was suggested > > however to carefully manage the change process including clear deadlines > > and announcements to ensure proper community consensus building. > > 4. Re-introducing Informal Discussion Step > > There was strong agreement to re-introduce this step and that gathering > > support prior to a formal proposal is crucial. > > 5. Appeals Procedure – Process, Deadlines, Recusals > > There was general agreement to have a well defined appeals procedure > > with clear deadlines and a certain level of formalism. Some people > > suggested to create a separate appeals body. Others felt that it will be > > difficult to find people and that the WG chairs tend to have experience > > with the PDP. > > 6. Editorial Changes > > There was no disagreement about the suggested editorial changes. > > --- > > [1] There was a question if the RIPE Vice Chair should also be listed. > > However, ripe-714 provides the option for the RIPE Chair to delegate to > > others, e.g. a Vice Chair. > > -- > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, get a password reminder, or change your subscription options, please visit: https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-list

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Response to Request from Ukrainian Government
by Hans Petter Holen 10 Mar '22

10 Mar '22

Dear colleagues, Today we responded to a request from the Ukrainian Government. We have published this on our website here: https://www.ripe.net/publications/news/announcements/ripe-ncc-response-to-r… Kind regards Hans Petter Holen Managing Director RIPE NCC

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statement on infrastructure governance sanctions regime
by Niels ten Oever 10 Mar '22

10 Mar '22

Dear all, With a diverse group of actors we made a statement on what we think an internet infrastructure governance sanctions regime should look like. Looking forward to discuss it with you. Statement: https://www.pch.net/resources/Papers/Multistakeholder-Imposition-of-Interne… [PDF] Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/nielstenoever/status/1501821745631797249 Press: https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2022/03/10/internet_russia_sanctions/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/10/internet-russia-sancti… https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-technology-business-europe-890976… Plain text version of the statement: Thursday, March 10, 2022 The Hague Multistakeholder Imposition of Internet Sanctions Executive Summary The invasion of Ukraine poses a new challenge for multistakeholder Internet infrastructure governance. In this statement, we discuss possible sanctions and their ramifications, lay out principles that we believe should guide Internet sanctions, and propose a multistakeholder governance mechanism to facilitate decision-making and implementation. Introduction The Internet is in its thirtieth year of transition from national to multistakeholder governance. As we encounter pivotal moments, we must decide as a community whether Internet self-governance has matured sufficiently to address such newly encountered issue. Governments have imposed sanctions throughout history, but the global Internet governance community has not yet established a process dedicated to this task. We believe it is now incumbent upon the Internet community to deliberate and make decisions in the face of humanitarian crises. We may not responsibly dismiss such crises without consideration, nor with consideration only for the self-interest of our community’s own direct constituents; instead, maturity of governance requires that self- interests be weighed in the balance with broader moral and societal considerations. This document is the beginning of a global Internet governance conversation about the appropriate scope of sanctions, the feasibility of sanctions within the realm of our collective responsibility, and our moral imperative to minimize detrimental consequences. Principles for Internet Infrastructure Governance Sanctions We, the undersigned, agree to the following principles: - Disconnecting the population of a country from the Internet is a disproportionate and inappropriate sanction, since it hampers their access to the very information that might lead them to withdraw support for acts of war and leaves them with access to only the information their own government chooses to furnish. - The effectiveness of sanctions should be evaluated relative to predefined goals. Ineffective sanctions waste effort and willpower and convey neither unity nor conviction. - Sanctions should be focused and precise. They should minimize the chance of unintended consequences or collateral damage. Disproportionate or over-broad sanctions risk fundamentally alienating populations. - Military and propaganda agencies and their information infrastructure are potential targets of sanctions. - The Internet, due to its transnational nature and consensus-driven multistakeholder system of governance, currently does not easily lend itself to the imposition of sanctions in national conflicts. - It is inappropriate and counterproductive for governments to attempt to compel Internet governance mechanisms to impose sanctions outside of the community’s multistakeholder decision-making process. - There are nonetheless appropriate, effective, and specific sanctions the Internet governance community may wish to consider in its deliberative processes. Recommendations We believe it is the responsibility of the global Internet governance community to weigh the costs and risks of sanctions against the moral imperatives that call us to action in defense of society, and we must address this governance problem now and in the future. We believe the time is right for the formation of a new, minimal, multistakeholder mechanism, similar in scale to NSP-Sec or Outages, which after due process and consensus would publish sanctioned IP addresses and domain names in the form of public data feeds in standard forms (BGP and RPZ), to be consumed by any organization that chooses to subscribe to the principles and their outcome. This process should use clearly documented procedures to assess violations of international norms in an open, multistakeholder, and consensus-driven process, taking into account the principles of non-overreach and effectiveness in making its determinations. This system mirrors existing systems used by network operators to block spam, malware, and DDoS attacks, so it requires no new technology and minimal work to implement. We call upon our colleagues to participate in a multistakeholder deliberation using the mechanism outlined above, to decide whether the IP addresses and domain names of the Russian military and its propaganda organs should be sanctioned, and to lay the groundwork for timely decisions of similar gravity and urgency in the future. Signed, Bart Groothuis, Member of the European Parliament, Netherlands Bill Woodcock, Executive Director, Packet Clearing House Ihab Osman, Non-Executive Director, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Mike Roberts, founding President and CEO, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Jeff Moss, President, DEFCON Niels ten Oever, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Amsterdam Marina Kaljurand, Member of the European Parliament, Estonia, former ambassador to Russia and the United States Eva Kaili, Member of the European Parliament, Greece Runa Sandvik, security researcher Kurt Opsahl, Electronic Frontier Foundation (affiliation for identification purposes only) John Levine, President, CAUCE North America Virendra Rode, founder and contributor, Outages.ORG Stephen D. Crocker, Edgemoor Research Institute Job Snijders, board member, RIPE NCC, PeeringDB, and Route Server Support Foundation Moez Chakchouk, Director of Policy, PCH, former ADG/CI UNESCO and former Tunisian minister Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis, Kentik Ondrej Filip, CEO, CZ.NIC and Chairman, European Internet Exchange Association Greg Rattray, Founder, Next Peak and former cybersecurity advisor to ICANN Serge Droz, in personal capacity, Director FIRST Mark Tinka, board member, FranceIX Dmitry Kohmanyuk, CEO, Hostmaster Ltd. Timothy Denton, Chairman, Internet Society, Canada Chapter Barry Greene Perry E. Metzger, Managing Member, Metzger, Dowdeswell & Co. LLC Roelof Meijer, CEO, SIDN Svitlana Matviyenko, Associate Director, Digital Democracies Institute, Simon Fraser University Rabbi Rob Thomas, CEO, Team Cymru Harald Summa, CEO, DE-CIX Chris Gibson, in personal capacity, CEO FIRST Tom Killalea The Internet Archive Philip Reiner, CEO, Institute for Security and Technology Megan Stifel, Chief Security Officer, Institute for Security and Technology Bart Stidham, CEO, NAND Rudolf van der Berg, Programme Manager, Stratix Consulting _____________________________________________________________________________ Annex: Technical Discussion of Internet Governance Sanction Measures This statement is occasioned by the letter Andrii Nabok (Андрій Набок) of the Ukranian Ministry of Digital Transformation addressed to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on the morning of Monday, February 28, 2022.[1] ICANN [2] and RIPE [3] replied to Mr. Nabok’s letter directly, in the narrowest possible terms, and in the negative. In this annex, we discuss the technical specifics of each of the proposed sanctions, as well as of other possible Internet sanctions which we suggest are more effective, more precise, and carry fewer risks and lower costs. Analysis of Ukraine’s Request We respect Mr. Nabok’s professional expertise and his inclusion of Ukraine’s Internet community in the drafting of his letter in the full spirit of the multistakeholder principles by which the Internet is governed, and we express our deepest sympathies for the indescribable trauma Ukraine is experiencing as a result of Russia’s invasion, which we condemn without reservation. Mr. Nabok’s letter requests the imposition of four Internet governance sanctions against Russia, namely: - Permanent or temporary revocation of the country code top-level domains “.ru”, “.рф” and “.su”. - Revocation of SSL certificates associated with those domains. - Disablement of DNS root servers situated within the Russian Federation. - Withdrawal of the right to use IPv4 and IPv6 addresses by Russian networks. We commend Mr. Nabok and the Ukrainian people and government for responding to bloodshed with diplomacy and seeking deescalatory sanctions. Internet governance sanctions must, however, be selected and implemented carefully, in order to achieve the greatest effect and to avoid unanticipated consequences. In the attached appendix, we discuss each of the proposed sanctions, as well as others we consider more effective, with lower costs and risks of unintended consequences. Revocation of country-code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) Every ISO-3166 Alpha-2 two-letter abbreviation of a national name is reserved for the use of the Internet community of that nation as a “country-code Top Level Domain,” or “ccTLD.” This reservation is made expressly for the Internet community of the nation and not the government of the nation. Geographic, political, and sociocultural allocations of “internationalized” top-level domains (such as “.рф” to the Russian Federation, or “.укр” to Ukraine) are made in parallel with the ISO-3166 mechanism. The primary users of any ccTLD are its civilian constituents, who may be distributed globally and may be united by linguistic or cultural identity rather than nationality or national identity. Removal of a ccTLD from the root zone of the domain name system (the sanction suggested by the letter) would make it very difficult for anyone, globally, within Russia or without, to contact users of the affected domains, a group that consists almost entirely of Russian- speaking civilians. At the same time, it would have relatively little effect upon Russian military networks, which are unlikely to rely upon DNS servers outside their own control. We therefore conclude that the revocation, whether temporary or permanent, of a ccTLD is not an effective sanction because it disproportionately harms civilians; specifically, it is ineffective against any government that has taken cyber-defense preparatory measures to alleviate dependence upon foreign nameservers for domain name resolution. In addition, any country against which this sanction was applied would likely immediately set up an “alternate root,” competing with the one administered by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, using any of a number of trivial means. If one country did so, others would likely follow suit, leading to an exodus from the consensus Internet that allows general interconnection. Revocation of certificates associated with domain names At least two kinds of cryptographic certificates and signatures are potential mechanisms for sanction, and we discuss each independently. First, revocation of SSL certificates, as mentioned in Mr. Nabok’s letter: SSL (“Secure Socket Layer”), which has been succeeded by TLS (“Transport Layer Security”), is a certification mechanism principally used to authenticate and encrypt connections from web browsers to web servers. Such certificates are used in online commerce and banking, among other less visible roles. Certificates are issued by Certificate Authorities (“CAs”), of which there are approximately 700 in existence, [4] a significant number of them are controlled, directly or indirectly, by national governments or intelligence agencies. Any one of these organizations may issue a certificate to anyone, certifying that they are the authentic administrator of any domain. [5] The revocation of certificates associated with governmental or military domains is not an effective sanction, because the targeted government is likely already using a Certificate Authority under its own control, and if it is not it can easily cause any CA under its influence to issue a replacement certificate. The revocation of certificates associated with private subdomains (for instance, redcross.ru, citibank.ru) would render communications between these organizations and their constituencies insecure and vulnerable to cybercrime until they were able to get new certificates issued; decreasing law and order and rendering a civilian population more vulnerable to crime is not an effective sanction. Alternatively, adding existing certificates for propaganda outlets to Certificate Revocation Lists or using Online Certificate Status Protocol (OSCP) to flag them as revoked would warn casual users such websites are problematic and require them to take explicit action to proceed beyond the warning. These techniques are, however, limited: they must generally be done by the same CA that issued the original certificate, which may not be outside the influence of the sanctioned government. We thus believe this to be an effective sanction in the cases where it is possible to invoke: it is specific, easily centrally implemented and rolled back, and has little chance of unintended broader consequences. Revocation of DNSSEC signatures on DNS delegations The cryptographic signatures used to authenticate domain names are known as DNSSEC, or DNS Security Extension signatures. Clients can evaluate the veracity of the mappings between domain names and IP addresses, which is what allows them to find and connect to resources on the Internet, by cryptographically validating the DNSSEC signature associated with a domain name. If a top-level domain were removed from the DNS root, the DNSSEC signature that validates the delegation of that domain would consequently be removed as well. DNS clients or resolvers still in possession of the old information could continue to reach the websites or email addresses identified by a domain, but they would be unable to validate that they had arrived at the right place. The DNSSEC signature validating the delegation of a top-level domain could also be removed while leaving the delegation itself in place. DNSSEC signatures prevent criminals from performing “man-in-the-middle” attacks, impersonating the website of a retail bank, for instance, to capture the user’s authentication information and empty their accounts. Military and high-security networks may use technical mechanisms to ensure that lack of a DNSSEC delegation above a signature under their control, in the DNS hierarchy, will not interfere with their resolution. Regular Internet users, however, either will be confronted with error messages indicating that their bank’s website is an impostor or will not be notified if an attacker stands between them and their bank. Removing the DNSSEC signature validating the delegation of a national top-level domain, whether in association with the removal of the delegation or not, may have little or no effect upon military and other high-security networks, but it would decrease law and order and make ordinary people much more susceptible to cybercrime. Tampering with DNSSEC signatures is thus not an effective sanction. Disablement of DNS root servers Root nameservers are simply those nameservers that hold a static copy of the DNS “root zone,” which is, by its very nature, public information. Essentially any nameserver may be made a root nameserver, simply by telling it to retrieve and cache copies of the DNS root zone. Disabling specific root nameservers has no effect, since they are, by design, not uniquely privileged or in possession of unique information. Disabling all root nameservers is not feasible since it would disable the Internet for everyone, and anyone could, and would, establish new ones. Disabling root nameservers thus has no utility as a sanction. Withdrawal of the right to use Internet Protocol addresses Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, the numeric identifiers by which Internet devices find each other, are allocated by the five Regional Internet Registries that together constitute the Number Resource Organization (NRO). Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE) is the Regional Internet Registry for Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Central Asia, with responsibility for allocating IP addresses to Russian entities. It is within RIPE’s power, if directed to do so by its member organizations through its multistakeholder governance process, to create policy that would effectively withdraw the allocations of IP addresses it has made to Russian organizations. This situation bears some similarities to the governance of domain names, yet it also contains crucial differences. ICANN’s authority extends no further into the DNS hierarchy than the root level, so actions taken by ICANN inherently affect entire top-level domains unitarily, without the possibility of “surgical” actions upon one subdomain and not another. By contrast, the Regional Internet Registries can affect policy on a per-organization (or even finer) basis. Yet rescinding an IP address allocation does not prevent its previous holder from continuing to use it. Indeed, “IP address hijacking” is a relatively commonplace problem on the Internet. Therefore, although it can be precisely targeted, simply rescinding the right to use an IP address allocation is not, by itself, an effective sanction. Note that this process of IP address revocation and RPKI attestation revocation would be a normal consequence of an address recipient (such as the Russian military) failing to pay annual registration fees to its Regional Internet Registry, something that may in fact come to pass as a consequence of financial and banking sanctions. But such a process might take years. Another negative consequence of revoking IP address allocations is that revoked addresses will likely be allocated to a different recipient subsequently, who will then find themselves competing with the original holder for their use. Manipulation of routing security attestations A potential sanction not explicitly requested in Mr. Nabok’s letter is the manipulation of routing security attestations to produce the effect of a partial or complete disconnection from the Internet of specific networks, such as those of the Russian military or propaganda agencies. As with domain names, technical mechanisms exist to cryptographically verify the legitimacy of use of IP addresses. Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL) and Routing Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) are the two primary such mechanisms. To be used for communication on the Internet, IP addresses must be “announced” through the routing system, and the routers of the larger and better-secured networks utilize these two mechanisms to ensure that invalid routes are not used by their routers. Smaller and less-secured networks do not typically implement these mechanisms. A manipulation of RPSL and RPKI records in centralized registries would flow through to all networks employing these common routing security mechanisms, some of which would then automatically stop routing traffic to and from the specified networks, without affecting other “adjacent” civilian networks or being subject to trivial “work- arounds.” The manipulation of RPSL and RPKI routing security attestations could be an effective sanction measure, because it appears precise, easily and quickly implemented and reversed, and reasonably effective. However, the appropriation of preexisting routing security mechanisms for use in sanctions, likely unexpected by the participating networks, could conflict with the business or regulatory requirements of those networks, and, crucially, could risk the withdrawal of networks from the system entirely. Such an exodus would both make this potential sanction less effective in the future and have the far greater cost of eroding cybersecurity for the Internet as a whole, the purpose for which the routing security systems were built in the first place. This thus constitutes an unacceptable risk. Other Internet-associated, non-technical sanctions Other sanctions related to the Internet’s operation and governance may be worth considering. These include, for example, the disallowance of sanctioned personnel from participation in Internet governance, policymaking, or standardization proceedings. Such nontechnical measures are outside the scope of this document. Blocklisting Network operators and DNS resolver operators already make use of multistakeholder-governed lists, similar to the way financial lenders use credit scoring agencies, to determine what IP addresses to route and pass traffic between, and what domain names to resolve. This is the mechanism by which persistent spammers and address hijackers are excluded from the network, and by which Internet users are protected from malware and phishing attacks. The technical mechanisms by which such blocking information is passed are mature, robust, instantaneous, and globally standardized. Information related to IP addresses and Autonomous System Numbers is mostly carried over BGP feeds, while information related to domain names is mostly carried over RPZ feeds. Both mechanisms are implemented by essentially all large operators globally. Blocklisting IP addresses and Autonomous System Numbers has all of the advantages of address block revocation or manipulation of routing security attestations, without the drawbacks. It allows network operators to block both the acceptance of routes and the passage of traffic, each or both of which may be appropriate in different situations and in response to different threats. Blocklisting of domain names allows full precision and specificity, which is the problem that precludes action by ICANN. The system is opt-in, voluntary, consensual, and bottom-up, all values the Internet governance community holds dear. Yet, at the same time, it has achieved broad adoption. We conclude that the well-established methods of blocklisting provide the best mechanism for sanctioning both IP routes and traffic and domain names, and that this mechanism, if implemented normally by subscribing entities, has no significant costs or risks. Our conclusion is that blocklisting of IP addresses, Autonomous Systems, and domain names upon which the multistakeholder community can establish consensus is effective and carries no inherent danger of being over-broad. Once decided upon, it is easily invoked—and equally easily rolled back once the problem is resolved. Most important, it carries no significant costs or risks and is aligned with the Internet’s multistakeholder governance values and principles. References: [1] https://eump.org/media/2022/Goran-Marby.pdf [2] https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/marby-to-fedorov-02mar… [3] https://www.ripe.net/publications/news/announcements/ripe-ncc-executive-boa… [4] https://www.eff.org/files/defconssliverse.pdf [5] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/compromised-certificate-authorities-ho… Best, Niels -- Niels ten Oever, PhD Postdoctoral Researcher - Media Studies Department - University of Amsterdam Affiliated Faculty - Digital Democracy Insitute - Simon Fraser University Research Fellow - Centre for Internet and Human Rights - European University Viadrina Associated Scholar - Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade - Fundação Getúlio Vargas W: https://nielstenoever.net E: mail(a)nielstenoever.net T: @nielstenoever P/S/WA: +31629051853 PGP: 2458 0B70 5C4A FD8A 9488 643A 0ED8 3F3A 468A C8B3 Read my latest article on Internet infrastructure governance in Globalizations here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2021.1953221

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