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RIPE meetings: IP addresses as spoils of war

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Re: RIPE meetings: IP addresses as spoils of war

#31

It was always a bit confusing how RIPE got around the Crimea switchover in 2014. They must have found a way to reallocate the system over to Russian companies as Ukranian ISPs no longer serve the region, but how they managed to do so without officially acknowledging Russian sovereignty is a mystery. Especially since they keep extensive paperwork. I asked about it on SE, https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/64179/d…

I don't follow the logic that RIPE has to acknowledge Russia's claim on Crimea as legit to do this. As far as I can tell, the following statements are true independent of who you think rightly owns Crimea: 1. RIPE is the ultimate authority over IP address assignments in Europe as recognized by the relevant governments here 2. The Crimea region became served by different ISPs than before (for whatever reason) 3. RIPE…

I agree with you. The GP's argument is like saying I mailed a letter addressed to "Crimea, Russia" and the post office delivered it, therefor the US (or NATO as their claim makes a few jumps) recognizes Russia's claim to Crimea.

RIPE doesn't have the authority to make that decision. Just as the friendly person at the post office making sure my letter gets where I meant it to, doesn't either.

Re: RIPE meetings: IP addresses as spoils of war

#32

It was always a bit confusing how RIPE got around the Crimea switchover in 2014. They must have found a way to reallocate the system over to Russian companies as Ukranian ISPs no longer serve the region, but how they managed to do so without officially acknowledging Russian sovereignty is a mystery. Especially since they keep extensive paperwork. I asked about it on SE, https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/64179/d…

I don't follow the logic that RIPE has to acknowledge Russia's claim on Crimea as legit to do this. As far as I can tell, the following statements are true independent of who you think rightly owns Crimea: 1. RIPE is the ultimate authority over IP address assignments in Europe as recognized by the relevant governments here 2. The Crimea region became served by different ISPs than before (for whatever reason) 3. RIPE…

Well there are a couple of contradictions, though they don't imply that Russia's claim is recognized, just that Ukraine's claim is no longer recognized.

For example, their accounting department is likely accepting money from companies that have no legal basis under Ukrainian law for activities in Crimea. Unless they've waived all fees.

Re: RIPE meetings: IP addresses as spoils of war

#34
Possibly unrelated, but: so far russia has invaded the east part of ukraine, with the west part relatively “calm” despite being of course involved in the conflict.

I wonder: has no one from the companies on the east side thought of “lending” their address blocks to companies on the west side, momentarily, in hope of ucraine to survive the hostile invasion?

A bit like asking companies on the west side to act like trustees, if you will.

Just a thought, an honest question.

Re: RIPE meetings: IP addresses as spoils of war

#35

It was always a bit confusing how RIPE got around the Crimea switchover in 2014. They must have found a way to reallocate the system over to Russian companies as Ukranian ISPs no longer serve the region, but how they managed to do so without officially acknowledging Russian sovereignty is a mystery. Especially since they keep extensive paperwork. I asked about it on SE, https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/64179/d…

> how they managed to do so without officially acknowledging Russian sovereignty is a mystery. Especially since they keep extensive paperwork.

that's it. they just did what needed to be done and kept quiet about the political implications.

Re: RIPE meetings: IP addresses as spoils of war

#36
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow the logic that RIPE has to acknowledge Russia's claim on Crimea as legit to do this. As far as I can tell, the following statements are true independent of who you think rightly owns Crimea: 1. RIPE is the ultimate authority over IP address assignments in Europe as recognized by the relevant governments here 2. The Crimea region became served by different ISPs than before (for whatever reason) 3. RIPE…

I agree with you. The GP's argument is like saying I mailed a letter addressed to "Crimea, Russia" and the post office delivered it, therefor the US (or NATO as their claim makes a few jumps) recognizes Russia's claim to Crimea. RIPE doesn't have the authority to make that decision. Just as the friendly person at the post office making sure my letter gets where I meant it to, doesn't either.

As far as I know most countries do or at least did in fact refuse to deliver mail addressed to "Crimea, Russia". In order for it to get through, you either need someone to bounce it within Russia or to disguise it from your national post office but not from the Russian post office (no doubt this is easy: just omitting "Crimea" or using the Cyrillic alphabet would probably work).

In the same way, they refuse to accept a Russian passport issued to someone in connection with Crimea. These are not recognised as purely domestic matters; the statehood is intimately connected with the territory it controls.

Re: RIPE meetings: IP addresses as spoils of war

#38
post #18

Starting to wonder how much the global takeoff of the Internet and specifically the WWW was due to the "end of history" period from 1989-2001, when there wasn't significant conflict between major powers. I suspect the spillover from this will be increasing Balkanisation of the Internet simply in order to limit the extent to which it's a cyberwarfare or propaganda battlefield.

> limit the extent to which it's a cyberwarfare or propaganda battlefield. This was already done years ago by concentrating "the internet" and limiting it to a few companies with ban-hammers ready. What once used to be many many different personal webpages, blogs, forums, chat sites (and protocols), is now basically limited to facebook (facebook, whatsapp, instagram), twitter and google (plus some outliers, such as t…

This feels more like a thing that "just happened" rather than something that was intentionally done.

Blogs and such are still there, they just take an much work as they always have. And the centralized sites don't require nearly as much intentionality.

Re: RIPE meetings: IP addresses as spoils of war

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> limit the extent to which it's a cyberwarfare or propaganda battlefield. This was already done years ago by concentrating "the internet" and limiting it to a few companies with ban-hammers ready. What once used to be many many different personal webpages, blogs, forums, chat sites (and protocols), is now basically limited to facebook (facebook, whatsapp, instagram), twitter and google (plus some outliers, such as t…

This feels more like a thing that "just happened" rather than something that was intentionally done. Blogs and such are still there, they just take an much work as they always have. And the centralized sites don't require nearly as much intentionality.

> rather than something that was intentionally done

Normal users cannot even put a link into an instagram post (pointing to whatever external site).... it seems pretty intentional to me (to keep you on their platform)

Re: RIPE meetings: IP addresses as spoils of war

#40
post #10

It is pretty surprising that RIPEs solution to sanctions is to just offer their services for free to those who can’t pay due to sanctions.

Apparently the sanctions also don't requite cutting Internet access to Russia. As long as Russia is still on the Internet we should maintain accurate records. If that means maintaining records for free, so be it.

This is akin to the fact that some US states will issue identification to people regardless of their immigration status.

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