[anti-abuse-wg] On +1s and Policy Awareness AND Astro... something...

In message <20190404223345.GX99066 at cilantro.c4inet.net>, 
"Sascha Luck [ml]" <aawg at c4inet.net> wrote:

>1) The RIPE NCC is not the provider of "AUP" for the entire
>Internet or even the Internet of the Service Region. I understand
>that some would *like* it to be, but that is not what the members
>are paying it for. 

I agree 100% with Sascha Luck.  RIPE is quite clearly not the enforcer
of an AUP for the Internet.... and shouldn't be.

It can however be the enforcer of an AUP for just that minimal set of
services that it does provide, and I would argue that it should be.
And indeed, that is perhaps the most clear and succinct distilation
of what this entire discussion on 2019-03 has been about:  Shall RIPE
have an AUP, like virtually -every- other online service does?

RIPE can't tell anyone either what to announce (over BGP) much less what
the individual IP addresses that people do announce are used for, which
could include, and which often *does* include, the distribution of malware
and also innumerable other unsavory and illegal activities.  None of that
is, or rightly should be any of RIPE's concern.  On that I think we all
agree.

As regards to what RIPE members are paying for, unless I have totally
misunderstood, the members are paying for the -orderly- distribution and
registration of number resources.  Hijacking quite clearly flies in the
face of that desired order, and if left unchecked, results in the very
opposite of order, i.e. chaos.  Such activity therefore cannot be either
condoned nor even tolerated by the dues paying members if they are in
fact to get the very thing that they are paying for, order over chaos.

Even such online services as Twitter, which charges people nothing, and
which consciously and deliberately permits the creation of fake "parody"
accounts, has an AUP.  You wll get booted from Twitter if you go around
threatening people directly with physical violence or if you encourage
others in that direction.  The penalty for such sins is simply and only
the removal of the services that Twitter provides.  You don't go to prison,
you don't have to pay a monetary fine, and you aren't banned from the
Internet as a whole.  You just don't get to play on Twitter anymore.

Based on that example, and on countless others that I could also easily
cite, it does not seem to me to be all that radical of an idea that RIPE
should likewise have an AUP... one whose very limited goal is to promote
respect for its own allocations, and those of its brethren RIRs, thus
promoting order over chaos, and with the sum total of the possible penality
for deliberately breaking the AUP being strictly and only the mere withdrawal
of just those few small services that RIPE provides.  No death penality.
No monetary fines.  No global bans from the Internet... which could not
be effectively enforced in any event.  If you break the RIPE AUP you just
don't get any services from RIPE anymore, just as if you break the AUP of
any other online service, and get caught doing it, you will be disallowed
the privileges of those other services.

When viewed in this light, the question must be asked:  Why is RIPE
essentially alone among all online services, both paid and free, in
not having -any- kind of AUP?  Why should it not have at least an AUP
which is itself minimal, and which is also consistant with RIPE's own
fundamental goal of promoting order over chaos when it comes to Internet
number resources?

Quite obviously RIPE is out of step with essentially every other online
service in having no AUP whatsoever.  Thus, it is not so much for the
supporters of 2019-03 to justify why thre should, at long last, be an
AUP for RIPE.  Rather, it is for the opponents of 2019-03 to justify,
I think, why RIPE should continue to be such an inconsistant outlier
among the whole universe of online services.

>2) If anyone needs to be "eradicated", I'd prefer that to be
>determined by a judge and, preferably, a jury. NOT some
>neighbourhood watch curtain-twitcher with the help of a monopoly
>service provider. 

Extending my analogy above even a bit further, this is like saying that
each and every time Twitter catches one of its users threatening another
user with physical violence, Sasha Luck would have Twitter, Inc. be
*required* to go to a judge and pay for a lengthy and costly civil court
trial before Twitter, Inc. would be allowed to just simply terminate
that user's Twitter account.  (I must assume that Sasha Luck would have
this rule extended also to the customers of Internet hosting companies,
i.e. if any of THEM got caught hacking or spamming, then *only* a civil
court case could be used to get any such customer accounts terminated.
This is the obvious and logical endpoint of the philosophy and policy
that Sasha Luck is advocating.)

To say that this is both an impractical and unworakable solution would
be an understatement.  In fact, it is quite obviously a ludicrously
over-the-top "solution" to what is, after all, a rather simple problem
involving private parties and the interpretation of a private commercial
contract.  So it is for Twitter, Inc. and so it is also for RIPE, Inc.

Certainly, if anyone who has been kicked off Twitter for AUP violations,
ever felt that this action had been in some way grossly unfair, then he/she
would have a perfect right to avail themselves fully of the civil courts,
and to sue Twitter, Inc. after the fact, for reinstatement.  And so it
would be also if RIPE had a (contractual) AUP and if RIPE ever elected to
enforce that.  I would hasten to add however that IN PRACTICE the number
of such lawsuits that have even been -filed- against Twitter, Inc., let
alone the number of such suits that have been seriously pursued, has
asymptotically approached zero.  (And I personally am aware of precisely
-zero- such "reinstatement" lawsuits.)

Oh!  And by the way, it could also be argued that Twitter, Inc. is a
"monopoly provider".  It you want to tweet, there really aren't a whole
lot of other services out there which you can sign up for and that allow
you to tweet.  This fact however, does not, by itself, constitute a
persuasive argument against Twitter having at least some minimal AUP.
And the company most certainly does have one.

I say again that it is only RIPE that is the radical outlier when it comes
to online services that have no AUP whatsoever.  RIPE is, in this one sense
at least, a bizzare and twisted historical anomaly, a leftover from a prior
century, and a member-based service organization that is quite clearly
entirely out of step with essentially -all- current practice on the entire
rest of the Internet.

In fact, now that I think of it, I think I can go even further than that
and say that RIPE is alone among the entire universe of member-based
organizations, both online and offline, in having no AUP whatsoever. As
I understand it, even at Mr. Trump's Florida resort hotel, Mar-a-Lago,
members are summarily ejected and their memberships revoked if they
steadfastly refuse to wear shoes in in the main ballroom, or if they
insist on using the tennis courts to relieve themselves.

RIPE members please take note:  It should be disconcerting to you, just
as it is for me, to realize that even Mr. Trump's commercial properties
maintain what are arguably higher standards for member behavior than RIPE
does at the present time.


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  My apologies in advance to anyone who is a Donald Trump admirer and
who may thus feel that my reference to him, in this context, is cause for
a formal complaint to the WG Chair.  I confess that I am not at all a fan
of the man myself, but I do believe that a careful reading of my comments
above will reveal that I have done him no disrespect, and quite the opposite,
that I have been compelled to compare him and his commercial properties
in rather favorable terms, at least when contrasted with the odd present
circumstances within RIPE.