[anti-abuse-wg] 2019-03 New Policy Proposal (BGP Hijacking is a RIPE Policy Violation)

In message <b5c5ab11-5ad4-3489-dd76-ec10d5a16f88 at foobar.org>, 
Nick Hilliard <nick at foobar.org> wrote:

>BGP hijacking is just the start, but there is an endless list of things 
>which are considered offensive or illegal in some or all jurisdictions 
>in the RIPE NCC service area, e.g. spam, porn, offending political 
>leaders, gambling, drugs, other religions, political dissent, blasphemy 
>and so on.

As I have already pointed out, this "slippery slope" argument is a
smokescreen, and only being used to justify the inexcusible status quo.

The proposal on the table doesn't deal with any matters which are in
any way even remotely tied to mere offenses against any local or
localize sensibilities.  It doesn't even remotely have anything at
all to do with either (a) any actions or offenses in "meatspace" nor
(b) any actions or offenses having anything at all to do with -content-
in any sense.  The present proposal only has to do with the outright
THEFT of IP addresses, i.e. the very commodity which RIPE is supposed to
the responsible shepard of.

Given all of the supposed experience and intelligence of the people on
this list, I seriously have no idea why it should be necessary for me
to explain the abundantly clear distinction between content and the
wires and IP infrastructure that carries that content.  Is this a
really difficult concept to understand?

It would seem so, at least when the "slippery slope" arguments is
clearly being made in order to falsely try to scare people with the
bogeyman of "censorship".  That is clearly not what the proposal is
about, and anyone who claims otherwise needs to go back to school
until he, she or it fully grasps the difference between content and
the IP addresses that provide the technical means to distribute it.

As those of us who have actually spent years opposing Internet abuse
like to say, our concern is not about abuse "on the Internet" but
rather it has to do with abuse "of the Internet".  Since this
distinction has obviously traveled slowly to the far side of the
pond, I am forced to provide some (hopefully educational) illustrations.

If someone sends you a highly offensive email, or makes a highly offensive
Farcebook post, saying that your paternal grandmother is a actually a
closet Visigoth, then that constitutes abuse -on- the Internet.

If, on the other hand, some hacker infects your machines, and thousands
like it, and then uses his entire collection of infescted machines to
DDoS you, presumably because you just beat him in a game of League of
Legends, then that is abuse -of- the Internet, because in this case,
it is the infrastructure itself that is being misused and abused...
and -that- kind of abuse affects all of us.

I seriously would have hoped that it would not have been necessary for
me to provide people on this mailing list, in particular, with examples
to illustrate the clear conceptual differences betwen abuse "on" the
Internet and abuse "of' the Internet, but apparently I hoped in vain,
and this rather critical and key distinction is still being either
throughly misunderstood or else throughly ignored when it comes to
these bogus "slippery slope" arguments.

Let me say it more clearly.  Nobody wants to take away your porn.
That's not what this is about, as any fair-minded reader of the
propsal can easily see.  The idea is simple:  Those who steal IP
addresses shall not be allowed to keep those and shall not in fact
be alowed to keep any IP addresses.  Nobody is proposing reclaiming
IP space from anyone who has the audacity to say. on the Internet,
that Stalin may have been, um, suboptimal.  Nobody is even proposing
that the worst Internet child porn purveyor ever detected by law
enforcement should have his IPs taken away.  Because this is not
about content and never will be.

Whst this *is* actually all about is just this:  You steal IPs and
then you lose your IPs.  I honestly don't understand why otherwise
intelligent people should have such a hard time grasping this rather
simple concept.  This is really not rocket science.


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  My sincere apologies, in advance, to any and all parties who may
be offended by my reference to Visigoths.  I meant no offense, either to
them or to any of their descendants who may be present here.  I'm quite
sure that some among the Visigoth were very fine people, even though I
never had the privilege of meeting any of them personally.