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

All,

On Tue, Mar 19, 2019 at 01:41:22PM +0100, Marco Schmidt wrote:
>A new RIPE Policy proposal, 2019-03, "BGP Hijacking is a RIPE Policy Violation", is now available for discussion.
>The goal of this proposal is to define that BGP hijacking is not accepted as normal practice within the RIPE NCC service region.
>
>You can find the full proposal at:
>https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2019-03

there has been a trend in recent years to make RIPE policy that
transforms the NCC from a resource registry into a political
agency to monitor and prescribe the behaviour of the internet 
industry in the RIPE Service Region by weaponising the NCC
Service Agreement. This I consider harmful to the standing of
the RIPE NCC as an impartial, non-political resource registry. 

The major point, even if you accept that the NCC has a mandate to
act as a regulatory authority - which I want to state
unequivocally here that I do NOT - against this proposal is that
it is ineffective and a waste of time and membership funding:

1. The procedures for policy violations in the RIPE NCC are
restorative rather than retributive. If the NCC determines that a
policy violation has occurred, the "offender" is given an
opportunity to rectify the situation, if they do so the case is
closed. Only if the "offender" refuses to cooperate or is not
contactable is any further action taken.

2. "Resource hijacks" are transient in nature. They persist,
generally, only until the "offender's" neighbours take action.
Yet, 2019-03 proposes a long, convoluted, costly process involving
"experts", reports, appeals and the NCC Board. By the time this
process has run its course, the "resource hijack" in question
will have long faded from memory. So the end result of this
proposed process is that the "offender" gets a report which it
will, in all likelihood, consign to the round archive (ie the
recycling bin).

3. The time of the NCC staff and the Board will have been wasted. So
will have NCC funding which we, as the Membership have to
provide. The "experts" will in all likelihood not work for free
either, indeed a cynic could argue that the main effect of this
proposal is to let some "experts" dip their beak into NCC funds.

4. I want to forestall the inevitable argument here that "we can
make policy to have those evildoers thrown out of the NCC
later!". No, you can't. The SSA and its contents are solely the
domain of the NCC Membership and I sincerely hope that that body
will refuse to ratify any proposal that opens themselves to the
loss of the services of a monopoly provider on the say-so of some
activist randomers on a mailing list. I know which way I would
vote. 

5. If there is still any doubt, the above constitutes strenuous
opposition to 2019-03.

rgds,
Sascha Luck