[db-wg] Puzzled by RIPE-NCC-LOCKED-MNT

In message <7ae2852d-112d-900b-f959-b3efd0575fb4 at yahoo.co.uk>, 
denis <ripedenis at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>The MNTNER 'ripe-ncc-none-mnt' was deprecated in 2004 and any object 
>referencing only that MNTNER was locked at that time. The MNTNER 
>'ripe-ncc-rpsl-mnt' is still in use now as a means of bypassing 
>authorisation for out of region resources to allow these ROUTE objects 
>to be created in the RIPE Database.
>...
>The comment says "Do NOT use this maintainer as 'mnt-by'". It was never 
>intended to be used in that way but many people did as a convenience. 
>Early this year users were prevented from using this MNTNER in the 
>"mnt-by:" attributes of other objects and any objects that still 
>referenced it were locked.
>
>The comment also says
>
>descr:           This maintainer may be used to create objects to represent
>descr:           routing policy in the RIPE Database for number 
>resources not
>descr:           allocated or assigned from the RIPE NCC.
>
>This still IS the intended use of this MNTNER object.

You lost me.  I guess you are talking about RIPE-NCC-RPSL-MNT.  But as
far as I can tell, there's no use of that in the data base anymore and
its all been converted over to RIPE-NCC-LOCKED-MNT.  And not seeing
any objects that are maintained by RIPE-NCC-LOCKED-MNT and that have a
creation date any later than 2016-03-12.  So when you say "This still
IS the intended use of this MNTNER object" I'm not at all sure what
you are referring to.  What non-user-specific MNTNER objects, if any
are still being set as the maintainer of objects now, today, in November,
2016?

>> I don't imagine that at this point in time anyone has the stomach for
>> simply purging all of the RIPE-NCC-LOCKED-MNT routes out of the data base
>> (because there would probably be blood in the streets if that happened)
>
>Many of these objects are there for a valid reason.

Oh, I'm quite sure that you are correct about that, which is why I said
that there would probably be blood in the streets if they suddenly all
vanished.  But I would hazard to say, without going into specifics, that
at least a few of the routes currently associated with RIPE-NCC-LOCKED-MNT
are present in the data base not for "valid" reasons, but rather for
rather untowards and even nefarious ones.  (And my beliefs and all
relevant specifics will be made public once I have completed my
investigation.)

I do not and will not dispute that RIPE-NCC-LOCKED-MNT may be useful,
but it still appears to my eye to be just a sort of stop-gap band aid,
even if a very useful one.  And to the extent, if any, that it might
hamper any effort or efforts to identify actual responsible parties,
I personally am not predisposed to thinking that it is a Good Thing.


Regards,
rfg