Celebrating 25 Years of RIPE

In 1989, the very first RIPE Meeting was held in Amsterdam, marking the beginning of the Internet in our region as we know it today. Fourteen people attended RIPE 1 on 22 May 1989 with the aim of coordinating IP networks in Europe. Since then, the RIPE community has grown to encompass a vast number of people from all over the world who share an interest in the development of the Internet.

25 Years of RIPE Timeline

This timeline shows important events that have taken place over the 25 years of RIPE. You can view each year's events by by clicking the year on the timeline.

Thanks to all those in the RIPE community who contributed to this timeline.

1989

Other Landmarks

• The very first RIPE Meeting is held in Amsterdam, in May, and attended by 14 people
• Rob Blokzijl is appointed RIPE Chair
• RIPE 2: November, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • Task Force 1: Connectivity and Routing (Coordinator Thomas Lenggenhager, SWITCH)
  • Task Force 2: Network Management and Operations (Coordinator Daniel Karrenberg, EUnet)
  • Task Force 3: Domain Name System (Coordinator Francis Dupont, INRIA)
  • Task Force 4: Formal Coordination (Coordinator Rob Blokzijl, NIKHEF)

Other Landmarks

• World Wide Web is invented by Tim Berners Lee
• Peter Deutsch of McGill University develops Archie, an archive of FTP sites, the first effort to index the Internet
• The Simpsons premieres on US TV
• Communism falls throughout Central and Eastern Europe

Other Landmarks

• Commodore releases the Amiga 3000, the first 32-bit Amiga
• The ARPANET is decommissioned
• East and West Germany reunite
• The Hubble Space Telescope is launched

Georg Chytil's notable event in the history of RIPE:

"There used to be whois records for national domains in the RIPE-DB sometime in the early 90's. And the implementation of the limericks object in the RIPE Database.

Other Landmarks

• First web servers outside CERN are created; on 6 August, Tim Berners-Lee announces the World Wide Web project on a Usenet newsgroup
• Linus Torvalds creates a new operating system kernel he calls Linux, based on the Minix code; he announces it on 25 August to a Usenet newsgroup
• Gopher, the first user-friendly internet interface, is created at the University of Minnesota
• Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia declare independence

Wilfried Woeber's notable event in the history of RIPE:
"Implementation of EBONE and establishing the initial full redundancy between the 4 core pops. "Incidentally" Peter Löthberg was one of the architects and core techies :-) "

João Damas' notable event in the history of RIPE:
"The establishment of the RIPE NCC as an independent organisation in cooperation with RIPE, rather than merging both ideas into the same activity."

Other Landmarks

• Lynx, a text-based Web browser, is made available to the public
• IETF publishes RFC 1366 (Guidelines for Management of IP Address Space)
• Bush and Yeltsin proclaim a formal end to the Cold War

Wilfried Woeber's notable event in the history of RIPE:
"Implementation of the Local Internet Registry concept, the Last-Resort registries, and the concept of PA and PI"

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 14: January, Prague, Czech Republic
  • The Local Internet Registries WG was established
• RIPE 15: April, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• RIPE 16: September, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR)

Other Landmarks

• InterNIC is established
• Mosaic web browser is released
• Dissolution of Czechoslovakia into Czech Republic and Slovakia
• Maastricht Treaty takes effect, creating the European Union

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 17: January, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• RIPE 18: May, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• RIPE 19: September, Lisbon, Portugal
  • European Operators Forum formed
• North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) is established
• Support for Classless Internet Addresses in the RIPE Database (ripe-121)

Other Landmarks

• Tim Berners-Lee establishes the W3C in October
• Nelson Mandela is elected President of South Africa
• White House launches web page

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 20: January, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • New Working Group formed: IPv6
  • First LIR Training Course held in Amsterdam
• RIPE 21: May, Rome, Italy
• RIPE 22: October, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• IPv6 is proposed for the first time

Other Landmarks

• The SSL protocol is introduced by Netscape
• The Opera browser is released on 1 April

Kurt Kayser's personal favourite RIPE moment:

"The Plenary event at RIPE 23 at NIKHEF, where a water pipe broke and the stage was getting soaking wet. All social events in Amsterdam were great. We had a good time and I would like to say thanks to all organizers."

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 23: January, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • The NetNews WG was established
  • The MBONE WG was set to inactive
• RIPE 24: April, Berlin, Germany
• RIPE 25: September, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Other Landmarks

• Macromedia Flash is introduced
• More email than postal mail is sent in the United States
• Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep, is born in July

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 26: January, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • IPv6 WG was established
• RIPE 27: May, Dublin, Ireland
• RIPE 28: January, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • European Internet Exchange BoF (later became EIX WG)
  • Top Level Domain (TLD) WG was established (later became CENTR)
• RIPE NCC is incorporated as a legal entity

Other Landmarks

• IEEE releases 802.11 (WiFi) standard
• Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs) first go on sale

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 29: January, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• RIPE 30: May, Stockholm, Sweden
• RIPE 31: September, Edinburgh, Scotland
  • The Anti-Spam WG was established
• ICANN is established in California as a not-for-profit organisation to oversee various Internet-related administrative tasks, including the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)

Other Landmarks

• The first Euro coins are minted in France
• Google is incorporated in Menlo Park, California by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin
• Jon Postel, influential computer scientist and administrator of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), dies

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 32: January, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • The Test Traffic WG was established
• RIPE 33: May, Vienna, Austria
• RIPE 34: September, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• The RIPE NCC makes its first allocations of IPv6 address space
• The RIRs sign a Memorandum of Understanding with ICANN on the role of the Address Supporting Organization (ASO). The first three RIPE community members to sit on the ASO are Hans Petter Holen, Wilfried Woeber and Sabine Jaume.

Other Landmarks

• "Provisional IPv6 Assignment And Allocation Policy Document" published
• Peer-to-peer music sharing service Napster is released
• Canadian company Research In Motion Limited (RIM) releases the first Blackberry device

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 35: February, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • CENTR DNR-Forum launched to replace RIPE TLD WG
• RIPE 36: May, Budapest, Hungary
• RIPE 37: September, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• The first African Network Operators Group (AfNOG) Meeting takes place in Cape Town. At this meeting it is decided to host AfriNIC at the RIPE NCC to get it started.

Other Landmarks

• The Internet grows to more than 100 million hosts
• The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) holds its first meeting in the southern hemisphere in Adelaide, Australia
• The Millennium Bug, or Y2K, fails to bring about the end of civilisation

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 38: January, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• RIPE 39: May, Bologna, Italy
  • Tools WG was established.
• RIPE 40: October, Prague, Czech Republic
  • Technical Security (TechSec) WG was established
• The first AfriNIC Board of Trustees is established, chaired by Dr Nii Quaynor.

Other Landmarks

• LACNIC, the fourth Regional Internet Registry, is officially established in Montevideo, Uruguay
• ICANN launches the first "new" generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) since 1988, including .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro
• The first public version of the peer-to-peer protocol BitTorrent is released by its inventor, Bram Cohen
• Apple releases the first iPod
• The European Internet Exchange Association (Euro-IX) was established

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 41: January, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• RIPE 42: April, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• RIPE 43: September, Rhodes, Greece
  • The NetNews WG was set to inactive

Other Landmarks

• An attack, lasting for approximately one hour, is targeted at all 13 DNS root name servers
• The Euro replaces the currencies of 12 states in the European Union

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 44: January, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; this is the first time the meeting is webcast to the community
• RIPE 45: May, Barcelona, Spain
  • Local Internet Registries WG was split into two new working groups: RIPE NCC Services WG and Address Policy WG.
  • The Tools WG was set to inactive.
• RIPE 46: September, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• The first RIPE NCC Regional Meeting is held in Dubai in December
• In October, the four existing RIRs sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), forming the Number Resource Organization (NRO)

Other Landmarks

• Phase I of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the first of a pair of United Nations-sponsored conferences about information and communication takes place in Geneva
• Two new social networking websites are launched, MySpace and LinkedIn, the latter aimed at professionals looking to network online
• Skype, a voice-over-IP (VOIP) service and instant messaging client, was released
• The Pirate Bay, a torrent file host, is founded in Sweden

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 47: January, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• RIPE 48: May, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • Last meeting of TechSec WG
  • ENUM WG was estabished
• RIPE 49: September, Manchester, United Kingdom
• RIPE NCC Regional Meeting, Moscow
• RIPE NCC Regional Meeting, Nairobi

Other Landmarks

• AfriNIC is provisionally recognised by ICANN and becomes a provisional member of the NRO
• The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), a United Nations multi-stakeholder Working Group, is established
• In February, students at Harvard University launch Facebook
• The first podcast is released
• Ludicorp launch Flickr
• The European Union (EU) sees enlargement as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus and Malta officially join on 1 May
• The NASA rovers Opportunity and Spirit land safely on Mars and begin mankind's first-ever field geological study of another planet

Other Landmarks

• Policy on "Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Policy for Allocation of IPv6 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries" (2005-09)
• The second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) takes place in Tunis
• YouTube, a video-sharing website, is founded by former PayPal employees
• Google Earth, a virtual globe, is released

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 52: April, Istanbul, Turkey
• RIPE 53: October, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• RIPE NCC Regional Meeting, January, Qatar
• RIPE NCC Regional Meeting, September, Moscow
• RIPE NCC Regional Meeting, November, Bahrain
• The RIPE Certification Task Force and RIPE Database Privacy Task Force is formed at the RIPE 53 Meeting in Amsterdam
• Policy on "First Raise in IPv4 Assignment Window Size" (2006-07)
• Policy on "Provider Independent (PI) IPv6 Assignments for End User Organisations" (2006-01)

Other Landmarks

• The first Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is held in October
• Twitter, an online social networking and microblogging platform, is launched

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 54: May, Talinn, Estonia
• RIPE 55: October, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • "The Day the Routers Died"
  • The Enhanced Cooperation Task Force was set up (became later Cooperation WG)
  • Introduction of Stenographers
• RIPE Task Force on Enhanced Cooperation is started at RIPE 54
• DNSSEC Key Repository Task Force is established at RIPE 54
• First meeting of the Middle East Network Operators Group (MENOG) takes place in Bahrain in April
• Policy about "Direct Internet Resource Assignments to End Users from the RIPE NCC" (2007-01)

Other Landmarks

• Number of Internet hosts exceeds 500 million
• World of Warcraft passes 9 million users

Ragnar Anfinsen's personal favourite RIPE moment:

"RIPE-55, my first RIPE meeting. "When the Router died" was just unforgettable. Sitting there listening to a bunch of geeks singing this crazy cool song, just made me feel part of something special. This was also, in my opinion, the real start of IPv6 work. 6rd was presented for the first time, and it has really made a difference for many ISP whom where unable to implement IPv6 due to lack of IPv6 support in the core routers."

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 56: May, Berlin, Germany
  • WG renamed and rechartered to Anti-Abuse WG
• RIPE 57: October, Dubai, UAE
• Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space is accepted by the RIPE community
• RIPE Cooperation Working Group is formed
• RIPE Anti-Abuse Working Group is formed
• "Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space" (2008-03)

Other Landmarks

• Pakistani ISP misconfigures its router and globally disrupts YouTube traffic

Ole Jacobsen's personal favourite RIPE moment:

"Organ demo at Sint Bavokerk Haarlem at RIPE 58"

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 58: May, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • Cooperation WG was established
• RIPE 59: October, Lisbon, Portugal
• "Run Out Fairly" policy (2009-03)

Other Landmarks

• Conficker worm spreads to millions of PCs

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 60: May, Prague, Czech Republic
• RIPE 61: November, Rome, Italy
  • The Test Traffic WG set to inactive and replaced by the new Measurements, Analysis and Tools (MAT) WG
• Policy on "Allocations from the last /8" (2010-02)
• MAT Working Group is established
• Rob Blokzijl receives royal recognition in the Netherlands for his work as founding member and Chair of RIPE

Other Landmarks

• The Arab Spring, which brings about sweeping political changes throughout the Arab World, begins in Tunisia
• China passes 450 million Internet users

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 62: May, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• RIPE 63: November, Vienna, Austria
  • RIPE Programme Committee established
• First meeting of the Eurasia Network Operators Group (ENOG) takes place in Moscow in June
• First South East Europe Meeting (SEE) in Dubrovnik in September 2011

Other Landmarks

• The royal wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William takes place at Westminster Abbey in London

Vladimir Kraynov's personal favourite RIPE moment:

"The biggest amount of dancing IT/telecom geeks ever seen! It was at RIPE 63 in Wiener Rathaus (during the gala dinner)! Unforgettable experience"

Vladimir Kraynov's notable event in the history of RIPE:

"First seeds of the largest IP-measurement network planted! The RIPE Atlas project birth."

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 64: April, Ljubljana, Slovenia
• RIPE 65: September, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• The RIPE NCC celebrates its 20th anniversary
• "RIPE NCC Services to Legacy Internet Resource Holders" (2012-07)

Other Landmarks

• ICANN starts to accept applications for new generic top-level domain names
• The discovery of the Higgs boson is announced, nearly 50 years after scientists first theorised its existence, adding further weight to the Standard Model of particle physics
• RIPE NCC starts allocating from last /8

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 66 takes place in Dublin, Ireland, in May, with a record number of 523 attendees
  • Open Source WG was established
• RIPE 67: October, Athens, Greece
• At the RIPE 67 Meeting in Athens, RIPE Chair Rob Blokzijl announces that, after 25 years of leading the RIPE community, he will step down after the RIPE 68 Meeting in 2014
• The EIX Working Group is dissolved after successfully completing its mission and a new Connection BoF is proposed in its place
• New Working Group formed: Open Source
• "Post Depletion Adjustment of Procedures to Match Policy Objectives, and Clean-up of Obsolete Policy Text" (2013-03)

Other Landmarks

• Former CIA employee Edward Snowden leaks classified NSA documents exposing global surveillance programs carried out by the US and other governments

Jun Murai's (Founder, WIDE Project) notable event in the history of RIPE:

"Congratulation on RIPE's 25th anniversary! It's been the exciting 25 years working with RIPE and people in RIPE. In Japan, I have been working in two ways, WIDE project for research and operation, and JPNIC which derive APNIC later as registres. RIPE has been connecting with both of the groups where a lot of great memories of collaboration between Europe and ASIA Pacific exist. The greatest amount of thanks, respects, appreciations, and celebrations for the great 25 years of Rob Blokzijl and RIPE!"

2014

Landmarks in RIPE

• RIPE 68: May, Warsaw, Poland
• RIPE 69: October, London, United Kingdom

Other Landmarks

• Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance is scheduled to take place in Brazil in April

Answers to RIPE 25 Years Quiz at RIPE 68