[anti-abuse-wg] AS201133

In message <69356E02-5194-4E73-BCBB-1AAC74737E71 at gmail.com>, 
Suresh Ramasubramanian <ops.lists at gmail.com> wrote:

>Porcine aviation is eminently possible too, I expect.

Well put sir!

That having been said, there quite certainly *are* two specific
/24 blocks, routed by AS201133, which appear on the following page
annotated with the Belizian national flag, thus presumably indicating
their geographical assocition with that country.

    http://bgp.he.net/AS201133#_prefixes

The reason HE.net associates these two blocks (86.106.93.0/24 and
93.115.38.0/24) with Belize is quite obviously because the relevant
RIPE WHOIS records for the blocks themselves indicate current residence
within those blocks of a corporation which itself claims, within
relevant RIPE WHOIS records, to be domiciled within Belize, i.e.
Fast Serv Inc. aka QHoster.com.

Interestingly however, traceroutes to addresses within said 2 blocks
appear to dead end rather closer to Romania/Bulgaria than to Belize...

============================================================================
% traceroute 86.106.93.5
...
11  ae-3.r00.buchro01.ro.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.3.235)  213.313 ms  212.371 ms  210.541 ms
12  83.217.231.35 (83.217.231.35)  245.623 ms  220.157 ms  225.047 ms
13  178.132.83.102 (178.132.83.102)  216.657 ms  219.868 ms  225.156 ms
14  * * *
15  * * *
16  * * *
============================================================================
% traceroute 93.115.38.9
...
11  ae-3.r00.buchro01.ro.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.3.235)  211.870 ms  206.528 ms  214.324 ms
12  83.217.231.35 (83.217.231.35)  220.968 ms  221.491 ms  230.588 ms
13  178.132.83.102 (178.132.83.102)  223.166 ms  221.899 ms  219.994 ms
14  * * *
15  * * *
16  * * *
============================================================================

For the time being, we can skip over this fact, and we can likewise skip
over any and all questions that might arise from the clear discrepancy
between the apparent actual physical locations of both Verdina Ltd. and
Fast Serv Inc. and their equally apparent choice of Belize... a country
with a zero corporate tax rate and no requirement to divulge the identities
of beneficial owners, even to the government... as their preferred "on paper"
corporate homes.

What I personally have somewhat more difficulty just skipping over, is
the question of why a Belizian corporation found it either necessary or
useful or appropriate to obtain its one and only AS number from RIPE...
an RIR which quite clearly is not in the business, as far as I know, of
granting number resources to Central American users.  In short, why
didn't this self-identified *Belizian* company, Verdina Ltd., obtain an
AS number from LACNIC?

And conversely, why did RIPE, and/or any of its LIRs, deem it appropriate
to grant one of RIPE's limited supply of AS numbers to a self-identified
*Belizian* company, particularly when this was the company's first,
last, and *only* AS number?  Wouldn't a LACNIC-issued AS number have
done just as well?  If not, why not?

It is that last set of questions that concerns me most on this particular
day.

Today, unlike tomorrow, I am looking past all of the obvious questions
that arise from the discrepancy between Verdina Ltd's and their "customer"
Fast Serv's claim of Belizian origin and their quite apparent actual
physical residence in Bulgaria.  Today I am not even questioning why
these two companies might both have gone to some lengths to avoid having
the identities of their actual owners revealed, either to the governments
involved, or to their respective tax authorities, or even to the RIPE
community.  And finally, today I am not inquiring into the set of
circumstances that caused Fast Serv Inc. aka QHoster.com to become...
as it is today... one of the preeminent hosters of malware-distributing
web sites in the entire known Universe.  No.  Today I am only curious
about how this Belizian company came to have its own RIPE-issued AS
number, you know, as opposed to an LACNIC-issued one.

If anyone would like to take a shot at explaing that to this particular
euro-ignorant troglodyte, I would be happy to have them do so.


Regards,
rfg