[db-wg] Route objects for space administered by other RIRs

In message <77E5D90B-6733-4CF8-8E15-3D984E4FBFFE at ripe.net>, 
Edward Shryane <eshryane at ripe.net> wrote:

>The RIPE-NONAUTH database contains all out of region route(6) objects
>(referencing prefixes not allocated to RIPE).
>
>This database was created by NWI-5:
>https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/db-wg/2016-May/005245.html
>
>The proposed cleanup is to only remove route(6) objects from
>RIPE-NONAUTH which are not registered in *any* region:
>https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/db-wg/2021-March/006876.html
>
>The cleanup will not delete the 62.61.192.0/18AS49902 route, as the
>prefix is registered to AFRINIC.

Thank you for the clear answer.

It is difficult me to tell, based only upon looking at the current
relevant AFRINIC allocation WHOIS records, when, exactly, the
62.61.192.0/18 was transferred from RIPE to AFRINIC, so let's
just set that point aside for a moment.

I'd like to ask a more general question anyway, which is just this:
When the authority for some IP number resource is transferred from,
say, RIPE, to some other RIR, is there any good reason why any
associated route objects should not likewise travel to the new RIR
along with the IP block allocation itself?  And if there is no such
good reason, then could we please have a rule that says that a
transfer of an IP address block out of the RIPE region will be
followed also by a deletion, in short order, from the RIPE data base
of any directly relevant route object(s)?

More broadly, it is parhaps a result of my overly-fastidious nature,
but I personally would be in favor of simply deleting all of the
remaining RIPE-NONAUTH route objects from the RIPE data base.  Is
there any clear need for any of these?  If the relevant IP blocks
have been entirely deallocated, then maintaining the route objects
would seem to be a Bad Idea on the face of it.  On the other hand,
if a given IP block has been transferred to some other region, why
doesn't it not make perfect sense for any relevant route objects to
also and likewise be created in the WHOIS data bases of those other
regions?

It seems that we are now in the era of RPKI and that everyone is being
generally encouraged to take routing security rather more seriously
these days, which is a profoundly Good Thing.  Yet it appears that
when it comes to these RIPE-NONAUTH route records, RIPE is still, in
effect catering not just to the last generation of route registration
protocols, but also and even to the generation before that.  At what
point in time does will all of this stuff be seen to be what it is,
i.e. antiquated and counterproductive?


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  In response to Frank Habicht's question about the IANA WHOIS
referral server, let me just say that due to the work I have done to
try to build a single tool capable of getting the correct WHOIS record
for any arbitrary IP address from whichever RIR it needs to come from.
I can say definitively and without hesitation that if one were to try
to rely exclusively on whois.iana.org for proper referrals then one 
would actually get the Wrong Answer (i.e. one would get pointed to the
Wrong RIR) a really substantial percentage of the time.

I have asked IANA to "fix this" and they have responded clearly that they
have absolutely no intention of doing so.  Thus, for my own tool, I have
been forced to resort to building my own quite lengthy table of exceptions
so that my tool will just ignore what whois.iana.org says in all of the
numerous cases where I have learned that what it says is just plain wrong.