[lir-wg] AS Number Policy

At 10:08 PM 09-07-02 +0000, Christopher Sharp wrote:

>Contacting the maintainers of long-unused ASNs will be problematic.  I 
>imagine a
>large percentage of registrants will simply no-longer exist and their contacts
>will have moved on.  I believe a general RIPE policy is needed to cover all
>unused registrations where the registrant no-longer exists - or have I missed
>something?

The LIR that allocated the ASN should be able to handle its removal.  I 
have started creating mntner objects for new ASNs with duplicate auth tags 
( with different MD5-PW passwords).  I give one to the requesting 
organization and one I keep for myself.  In the event the company goes 
bankrupt and I can't find anyone to talk to in the company, then I at least 
have the ability to remove their entry without them being around.


> >And even if RIPE manages to have a procedure for removing an ASN against
> >the will of the organization it was allocated to, what is to stop the
> >organization to continue to use it?
>
>Whilst this is a very valid point I hope registrants like these are in the
>minority.  The refusal of a few members to observe protocol is not a 
>reason not
>to define a policy and attempt to enforce it.  I suspect that many of the
>single-homed AS in use still have a relationship with the LIR through 
>which the
>application was made, in which case pressure could be brought to bear with the
>LIR to assist.
>
>Ultimately the community will decide if they feel strongly enough to bring 
>such
>offenders to justice.  This is likely to take the form of bogon filters.

I don't think we have to resort to the courts for this and I doubt they 
would help.  But the problem is not only with ASNs but also with IP blocks 
being advertised by organizations that don't own them.  Those that get
routing-wg at ripe.net see the list every week of unallocated ASNs and IP 
blocks being used freely on the Internet.  I'd like to make a 
suggestion.  Since these ASNs and IP blocks are the property of the RIRs, 
and since organizations are cybersquatting on these resources why shouldn't 
these RIRs advertise these IP blocks and ASNs themselves and blackhole them 
to their routers?

You'd get the attention of these cybersquatting organizations *real* fast.

-Hank


>C.