An update on the AfriNIC situation

Baldur Norddahl baldur.norddahl at gmail.com
Sat Aug 28 00:14:48 UTC 2021


On Sat, Aug 28, 2021 at 1:07 AM Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net> wrote:

> > On Aug 28, 2021, at 12:48 AM, Baldur Norddahl <baldur.norddahl at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > just to point out it is not just one guy but a whole region doing
> business like that.
>
> You’re saying a whole region consists of parties who don’t route IP
> traffic?
>
>
None of the regions require that the IP allocations are used for routing IP
traffic. Aside from that, I am saying that RIPE no longer has a "need"
policy which means you can have as much IP space as you want without
providing any need to own this space. In addition we have IP brokers that
expressly buys IP blocks for the purpose of selling - not routing - the
space.



> If not, you’re making a false equivalency.
>
> > In the RIPE region we had a run with many parties that created fake LIRs
> to get an extra /22 assignment.
>
> That’s unfortunate, and I hope RIPE revokes any allocations which were
> made under false pretenses and are being currently used in ways that
> violate RIPE’s current policies.  As AfriNIC does.
>

None of the regions will do anything like that as long as current policies
are fulfilled. As RIPE no longer has a policy of showing any need, no such
revocations will happen. This is a case only because the guy is using space
from AfriNIC.


>
> > Did they steal that any less than this guy?
>
> I believe the blocks in question are:
>
> 154.80.0.0/12
> 45.192.0.0/12
> 156.224.0.0/11
> 154.192.0.0/11
>
> So, yes, 6,144 times less.
>

Nah, what happened in RIPE with the /22 blocks was on a similar or larger
scale. Remember we had a whole /8 plus some for that policy.


>
> > This guy is a small fish compared to the robbery done by so many others.
>
> If you know of someone who’s fraudulently acquired _more_ than 6.3M IPv4
> addresses, and is profiting from their being used in contravention of RIR
> policy, I very much encourage you to request that your RIR perform a
> compliance audit.
>
>
Say we have an ISP with an allocation of 8 million addresses in a country
with 5 million people, including babies, a case can easily be made that
they have approximately that many IPv4 addresses they do not really need.
Maybe they will sell them for a profit some day. But RIPE _will not revoce_
those addresses. Does not matter that the business plans or whatever they
did to get that many were totally fake back then. And this happened
everywhere. Do not be naive, it was also going on in every other region.

In fact, a case can be made for the whole ARIN region of collectively
hoarding IPv4 space which now can be sold for a profit.

Or what about going back to 2011 when Microsoft bought a large IPv4 block
from someone who was not routing said block? This guy did not invent the
business model!

Fact is IPv4 was a lottery and the winnings have been distributed. A lot of
those that played did cheat. They are not going to pay for that now.

What perhaps makes this case different is that he is robbing AfriNIC. I am
afraid they are set up to be robbed as the last RIR to still have IPv4
available. Perhaps AfriNIC should just auction it away and use the money to
help the internet in Africa in other ways.

Regards,

Baldur
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