[ncc-services-wg] Divergence of RIPE / RIPE NCC policy

On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 10:52:29AM +0000, Nigel Titley wrote:
> At this point, things started to go wrong. A small but vociferous group 
> raised issues about the ability of certification and ROAs in particular to 
> enable the RIPE NCC (and by extension, the Dutch government) to "switch off 
> the internet". These concerns are perfectly valid but do depend on balance 
> of probability arguments. In my opinion the PDP handles this sort of of 
> argument very badly: it assumes that all discussion can be rationally  
> argued and arguments  of the form of "if condition A were to pertain then B 
> will happen and B is undesirable, but the probability of A happening is a 
> matter of opinion, and opinion varies wildly" don't enter into it.

Yes. I guess that's the same about the safety of atomic energy. There
were (and still are) many people claiming that the probability of
Chernobyl and Fukushima happening is very low, but the problem is that
IF it happens, the results are devastating, at least for those
impacted. Looks like we first have to suffer before re-considering
in this case as well.

> The fact that the arguments were only raised at the review stage didn't
> help either. 
> Most of the proponents of the proposal had long lost interest in re-stating 
> arguments that had been fought and won many months or even years previously 
> and the discussion started to spiral into destruction.

The arguments got rehashed in the wider "secure routing" context since
many many years. The dangers have been discussed at length. People probably
got tired of rehashing them again in the RIPE community, given that
they are "common wisdom". And/or hoped that this effort will die off due
to "no interest" or "no money". Unfortunately it didn't.

> However, this now left the RIPE NCC in a difficult position. They had spent 
> some hundreds of thousands of euros on work which the community had assured 
> them it wanted and which the community now was refusing to support.

That's the thing with research and proof-of-concepts. There is no
guarrantee that it will move to production phase.

What's happening here is what is called "go-minded" in aviation. Just
that you are on approach, doesn't mean you're going to actually land.
In fact, it's being trained that every approach leads into execution of
a missed approach procedure at decision altitude/height UNLESS
every parameter really indicates that it's safe to land.

Very bad accidents have happend (and still continue to happen) because
folks at the yoke/stick are "go-minded" and try to rescue an approach
(or in this case, continue a project without broad backing of those
affected).

IMHO, the pilot monitoring (RIPE community) has called out "go around!"
late (at decision altitude), but soon enough. Substantial concerns have
not been properly addressed and dangers mitigated.


Best regards,
Daniel

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