RIPE NCC Services Working Group Minutes RIPE 85
Wednesday, 26 October 2022, 14:30 – 16:00 (UTC+2)
Chaired By: Kurt Erik Lindqvist
Co-Chairs: Rob Evans, Bijal Sanghani
Scribe: Boris Duval
Status: Final
A. Administrative Matters
Kurt Erik Lindqvist welcomed attendees. The minutes from RIPE 84 were approved.
B. RIPE NCC Operations Update
Felipe Victolla Silveira, Chief Operations Officer, RIPE NCC
The presentation is available at:
https://ripe85.ripe.net/wp-content/uploads/presentations/79-RIPE-85-Operational-Update.pdf
Felipe Victolla Silveira presented the RIPE NCC operational update and mentioned that the high workload had now decreased, and that the RIPE NCC had more time to focus on the quality of service compared to previous years. He also mentioned recent efforts to achieve a more compliant and accurate registry, including the new ‘% inaccuracy’ metric that measures member information against what’s in the registry during Assisted Registry Checks (ARCs). Felipe also mentioned recent work to make RPKI more secure and the new Publish-in-Parent feature.
Farzaneh Badii, Digital Medusa, asked about the criteria for selecting the companies that provide the RIPE NCC with the list of sanctioned entities.
Felipe replied that he did not have the answer and that he would need to check with the Information Security team first.
Rüdiger Volk, representing himself, asked whether Felipe was aware of the ATHENA report published a year ago, which pointed out security flaws in the RIPE NCC, and further, whether the RIPE NCC had done anything to remedy these flaws.
Hans Petter Holen, Managing Director of the RIPE NCC, said that this was not the forum to disclose security information and asked Rüdiger and other community members to provide security-related information following the RIPE NCC's responsible disclosure policy.
Andrii Pylypenk, Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, asked Felipe if the RIPE NCC would consider applying stricter due diligence procedures to find and freeze EU-sanctioned LIRs and End Users. He added that the Ukrainian government had already provided the RIPE NCC with the list of sanctioned entities.
Felipe replied that this issue would be covered in RIPE NCC Chief Legal Officer Athina Fragkouli's presentation later in the session.
Sergey Myasoedov, NetArt, asked whether any IP addresses had been recovered after LIRs and End Users were sanctioned in 2022 and if so, how many.
Felipe mentioned that IPs were not recovered but frozen and that this list is available in the sanctions transparency reports.
C. Reducing Barriers to Engagement
Fergal Cunningham, Head of Membership Engagement, RIPE NCC
The presentation is available at:
https://ripe85.ripe.net/wp-content/uploads/presentations/83-Breaking-Down-Barriers-to-Engagement-Final.pdf
Fergal Cunningham shared an update on the RIPE NCC’s efforts to increase dialogue and engagement within the community. He summarised these efforts – there are more videos, new webinars, experimentation with new formats, including the new RIPE Labs podcast and the RIPE NCC Translations Wiki, which is currently available in six languages. He also encouraged members to use the new RIPE NCC Forum.
Desiree Miloshevic, ISOC Serbia, asked if there were plans to conduct another RIPE NCC survey.
Fergal mentioned that they were working on it and that it would be launched at RIPE 86 and that the results would be presented at RIPE 87.
Leonard Wagner, IN-Berlin e.V / Community-IX, mentioned that it was currently difficult to search the RIPE Meeting archives as they are hosted on different sites and that a Peertube gathering all the videos could facilitate this task.
Fergal agreed that this was a good idea and said that the Web Services team would look into it.
D. Updates to the Registry from Distressed Areas
Athina Fragkouli, Chief Legal Officer, RIPE NCC
The presentation is available at:
https://ripe85.ripe.net/wp-content/uploads/presentations/84-Areas-in-Distress_final.pdf
Athina presented updates to the registry from distressed areas. She gave an overview of the current due diligence procedures as well as the additional steps that could be taken to address this difficult issue. This included an additional disclaimer, freezing all updates or using a freeze button.
Georgi Hrabchak, Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, asked why the RIPE NCC provided IP addresses to Russian proxies in the occupied territories and whether this was part of the due diligence process.
Athina replied that this was part of RIPE NCC’s commitment to support local networks and that if an entity was found to be on the sanctions list, the RIPE NCC followed its due diligence process.
Andrii Pylypenko, Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, mentioned that a potential solution for Ukraine would be for the RIPE NCC to freeze all red-flag requests, which could be done by cooperating directly with Ukrainian government structures that are currently doing their best to protect Ukrainian companies in the fields of telecommunications and IT.
Other statements were made in Meetecho's Q&A section commenting on Andrii’s suggestion of freezing suspicious transfers from Ukraine to Russia.
Farzaneh Badii, Digital Medusa, said that the proposal to ask governments to review the requests was a bad idea, because in other contexts the government was the aggressor. She also mentioned that it might be interesting to think in terms of defending groups of vulnerable people rather than countries as some people might not have access to courts in their own countries.
Dmitry Kohmanyuk, Hostmaster Ltd., mentioned that he was in favour of the freeze button proposal or other proposals not involving a change in policy. He also mentioned that the community should prevent the RIPE NCC from being liable. He pointed out that the fact that the RIPE NCC took national documents to approve transfers was problematic in disputed areas and that the community should find a way to solve this problem in the future.
Tobias Fiebig, representing himself, said that there was a problem of definition because Ukrainians, for example, consider that the war already started in 2014. He also stressed that the solutions proposed assumed that all parties would respect the law, which was not always the case in wartime. He also added that we should have a really clear process, which could be followed even under the most dire circumstances and allow us to reach an acceptable outcome.
Erik Bais, A2B Internet, stated that with regard to the additional disclaimer solution, we needed a designated court (e.g. the Amsterdam court), as if we received court documents from disputed areas, it would be worthless. Regarding the freeze button, he mentioned that it should be open to all LIRs. He added that this should be mentioned in the RIPE Database. As co-chair of the Addressing Policy Working Group, he also asked Athina what kind of policy change she wanted.
Athina mentioned that they were looking for an exception to the transfer policy that explained how an LIR can lock in transfer requests for its resources.
Erik proposed to do this via the SSA to gain time.
Athina mentioned that not all aspects were covered by the policies, but that all aspects of the RIPE NCC procedures were in line with the policies, and that such a button would be in violation of the policy.
Sander Stefann remarked that it might be better not to put this in the policy because for him it had nothing to do with a policy. Sander added that if the RIPE NCC could approve mergers and acquisitions (M&A), then it should be able to use the same documents to implement the freeze button.
Athina said that the RIPE NCC does not approve M&As rather that it just receives the documents proving a merger or acquisition and updates the registry accordingly. She added that if the LIR representation changed and asked for resources to be released, the RIPE NCC would have to comply, otherwise it would be in breach of the policy.
Alena Kusnil, Ukraine ISOC, thanked the RIPE NCC for enabling her to attend the RIPE Meeting thanks to the RIPE Fellowship and also thanked the RIPE community for its support to Ukraine. She also reminded the audience that Ukrainians were struggling every day to repair their infrastructure and that 50% of the energy infrastructure had been destroyed. On behalf of the Internet Society of Ukraine, she asked the RIPE NCC to implement a temporary freeze on IP transfers in Ukraine until martial law was lifted in order to protect critical infrastructure.
Victoria Pounassiuk, ISP, also testified that the situation in Ukraine was extremely difficult for operators whose equipment had been stolen and who were under great pressure. She also asked for protection through the freezing of IP address transfers in the region.
Jan Žorž, representing himself, said that there seemed to be a consensus to freeze transfers until a better solution is found. He added that we should however find a longer-term solution that could be applied to similar cases if they occur.
Kurt Kayser, representing himself, asked whether number resources were now bound to geographical areas.
Athina mentioned that this concerned the location of resource holders.
Brian Storey, representing himself, asked a question via the Meetecho Q&A interface which Athina did not understand. Kurtis suggested that Brian send his question via the working group mailing list.
Robert Scheck, ETES GmbH, pointed out that for disputed areas, especially war zones and/or areas claimed by two countries, the RIPE NCC's suggestion to review applications via local governments carried the risk that government A successfully verified the application, while government B did not. He then asked whether this involved any legal risks and/or liabilities for the RIPE NCC.
Athina replied that this would indeed imply a risk of liability for the RIPE NCC and that this was why it had to be mentioned in the relevant policy.
Artem Zubkov, KCT.net, asked how the RIPE NCC will decide which entities are Ukrainian and which are not if it decided to ban all transfers.
Athina replied that this was something to be taken into account if and when the RIPE NCC works on such a ban.
RIPE NCC Board Chair Ondřej Filip concluded the discussion by informing the audience that the Board would work on a temporary solution that would buy some time until a more long-term solution was found, as such a solution would require time-consuming policy changes.
E. NCC Services Working Group Co-chair Selection
Kurtis Lindqvist, Working Group Chair
Kurtis welcomed Rob Evans to a new term as co-Chair of the Working Group and mentioned that his own term had come to an end and that he was not running again.
F. Open Microphone Session
Kurtis Lindqvist, Working Group Chair
There were no questions.
Z. Any Other Business
Kurtis Lindqvist, Working Group Chair
There were no questions.