In message <202208141023.27EANvpw090884@bela.nlnetlabs.nl>, Jaap Akkerhuis <jaap@NLnetLabs.nl> wrote:
"Ronald F. Guilmette" writes:
An interesting observation, and a question:
My observation is that you jump to conclusions based on thin air.
I do not. I observe. Show me all of the discussions that have taken place here on this list, since the outbreak of the war, about Russia and its actions, and about what the proper response to those actions should be among those who value life above money. You can't, because there haven't been any.
If you just did a minimun of research as in a search for "ripe Russia" you would have been better informed.
Done! I see this, which is just a lot of institutional platitudes: https://www.ripe.net/participate/member-support/the-ripe-ncc-and-ukraine-rus... "An Open Internet Remains the Goal" That certainly _sounds_ like a very high-minded and principled response. But is it just purely coincidental that this goal happens to align nicely with the goal of European network operators to maintain their current level of profitability. despite annoying little interferences like war, carnage, and human tragedy on a grand scale? In any case, I would neither have hoped for nor expected anything different from the various organs of what passes for Internet governance, such as ICANN and RIPE. None of these believe that it is their responsibility to intervene in any way, and perhaps they are right in taking such hands-off posisions. Time will tell. My comments were not directed at them, but rather to the myriad individual European transit providers and IXes that continue to do a robust business with Russia, even as hundreds or thousands of other western companies have curtailed or entirely ceased doing business with Russia. What excuses do each of these individual companies offer up for their maintenance of both the pre-war status quo and their own profitable movement of packets? If the only excuses they can offer up are some lame platitudes about the free flow of information, e.g. so that the populace in Russia can learn the truth about what their government is doing, then I have a free clue to offer: Six months in and that ain't working. Like not at all. The BBC's recently reinvigorated shortwave radio service is likely doing a better job of getting the truth to Russians, at present, than all of the IP packets flowing in or out of the country. What *is* being manitained however is connections to Russian web sites, thus allowing Russia to continue selling its goods and services to China, India, and the other remaining countries that still desire to do business with this rogue nation. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and it saddens me greatly to see that Europe has either forgotten the primary lesson of the 1930s, or else has failed to learn it at all, i.e. that a failure to forcefully confront agression at its outset is a mistake that will be paid for in blood many times over, and usually by people other than the ones who made the mistake. Disconnect Russia! This isn't the job of RIPE, or ICANN, or anybody else. It is the moral duty of each of you reading these words, as individual ethical and moral beings. Regards, rfg