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Candidate Biographies

Elad Cohen

Motivation and Background

Hello Everyone,

If I will have the honour of being elected, I will make sure that my following idea which is a solution to the "IPv4 Exhaustion" problem will be implemented, and then the number of IPv4 addresses will be duplicated and there will be more 4,294,967,296 IPv4 addresses. Each RIPE member will receive at least a free /21 from the new IPv4 pool. My idea is based on activating the reserved bit in the IPv4 packet header in order to create more 4,294,967,296 IPv4 addresses, you can read more about it here:
https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/members-discuss/2020-April/003676.html

My second idea, if I will have the honour of being elected, is a technical solution to the global "Email Spam" problem, currently the main organisation which is fighting email spam is "The Spamhaus Project", they are an illegal anonymous organisation according to their own presentation in the following link:
https://www.scribd.com/document/445894312/Spamhaus-Illegal-Private-Data-Violation

My solution to the global "Email Spam" problem is explained in the following link: (that solution will not only end the global "Email Spam" problem, but will end the harassment of the illegal anonymous organisation "The Spamhaus Project" towards RIPE members):
https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/members-discuss/2020-April/003778.html

My third technical solution will completely prevent spoofed IP traffic, spoofed amplification DDoS attacks, BGP hijacking, RIR hijacking. And will dramatically lower IoT botnet infections and Botnet C&Cs connectivity.

I will have the honour to assemble a roundtable for it to be implemented if I will be elected, you can read more about that technical solution here:
https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/members-discuss/2020-April/003902.html

Besides the above, there are internal RIPE issues that need to be handled, if I will have the honour of being elected, the following issues will be handled as well: 

  • I guarantee to lower the yearly fee of each RIPE member dramatically (as long as I have backing from the community, you can be sure that the yearly fee of RIPE members will be dramatically lowered on and on, and it will not be by raising fees to big enterprises - fees will never be increased - they will only be lowered - I will personally audit each and every expense of RIPE and will make sure that RIPE will change to be an efficient organisation).
  • Once the expenses will be dramatically lowered, there will also be options to invest the profits of the organisation and these investments will be owned by all the RIPE members, with this path - RIPE can become an organisation with $0 yearly fee and RIPE will also spread the yearly profits between the RIPE members in a way that each seniority year of a RIPE member is worth one point (so older RIPE members will receive more).
  • There will be a 24 hour SLA for response and resolution for any RIPE ticket, and at the end the RIPE member will be able to rate the quality of service received by the Ripe representative, there will be full Level 2 monitoring on each and every ticket.
  • RIPE will change to be a LIR-centric, each and every aspect of RIPE will change to be LIR-oriented and not bureaucracy-oriented
  • RIPE will be a 100% transparent organisation, nothing will be hidden from Ripe members.
  • Each country in the RIPE region will have at least one representative in RIPE, there will not be a case that a country in the region of RIPE have no representatives in RIPE.
  • I will make sure that the illegal anonymous organisation "The Spamhaus Project" will have no footprint in RIPE like the past co-chair of the RIPE Anti-Abuse Working Group was according to his own presentation in the following link:
    https://www.scribd.com/document/445894312/Spamhaus-Illegal-Private-Data-Violation
  • There will no politics in RIPE, in contrary to what the past co-chair of the Anti Abuse Working Group wrote in the above presentation link, while he was part of the "The Spamhaus Project", about a whole member’s country in the RIPE region. In addition to that presentation of "The Spamhaus Project" - RIPE will tolerate Internet privacy to the full extent - any RIPE employee will not be in contact with "The Spamhaus Project" in order to share with them in illegal way documents and data of RIPE members.
    I will support and initiate opening offices in the capital city of each and every country of the RIPE region, not for RIPE employees - but for RIPE members, RIPE members will be able to use one meeting office at no cost with time-sharing, the rest of the space will be monetized for the benefit of RIPE members. 

RIPE today is not the organisation that it was, RIPE is filled with bureaucracy, RIPE is not an LIR-centric organization, RIPE is not a transparent organisation, and the worst is that the two RIPE board members which are trying to be re-elected (Christian and Maria) are part of a voting scheme: 

In the following link you can see how Maria nominated Christian but the line "Reason for nominating the candidate:" appears twice in her description, because she copy-pasted a paragraph that was sent to her by Christian himself (15 minutes after Christian nominated Maria), Maria didn't even read it - all she did was copy-paste.
https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/agm-nominations/2020-April/000692.html

This is an essence of the key people behind RIPE, their disrespect to the RIPE community, how they are willing to cheat the RIPE community only for them to stay in their Board seats. If they cannot be trusted with being honest to the RIPE community - then how they can be trusted with the management of the approximately yearly 30 million reuros of expenses when every request by a RIPE member to receive details about RIPE providers in order to know to where the expenses are flowing - is being redirect by RIPE NCC to these people at the RIPE Board and no details of RIPE providers are being provided by them. The RIPE Board needs to change.

I have 20 years of technical experience and nearly 10 years of management and financial experience at your service.

Kindest Regards,

Elad

Alireza Ghafarallahi 

Background

Alireza Ghafarallahi.jpg

Alireza Ghafarallahi is a Doctorate of Business Administration and Master of Business Administration from Sharif University of Technology and CEO of AvitaDT Company, Chairman of the board of GGRCO and Virasabz a knowledge-based company.  Moreover, he is active internationally including the Middle East region, having a managerial role with Oman based company, RapidIT.

He is currently affiliated with RIPE and has attended many RIPE events since 2008.

Furthermore, he has gained much more experience from being a RIPE NCC arbiter since 2012.

He previously worked in ITC, a governmental and biggest ISP in Iran for 20 years in the technical division, as well.  Not only has Alireza participated in many IT field projects, but he also has worked with many LIRs as a consultant.  He is also a Cisco course instructor, namely CCNA and VoIP.

There are some requirements for an executive board such as experience in a senior management role and financial, strategic, and risk management.  Having 15 years of experience in the management field is due to acquired sufficient knowledge by MBA and DBA education is supported him to be a right person for Executive Board.

Consequently, his residency in the EU makes it easy for him to attend EB meetings in Amsterdam.

Motivation

Diversity, Improving Community and Equality.

Diversity in the EB, I believe this is the right time for a country with more than 80 million people and almost 400 LIRs to have an individual to represent them and other communities of neighboring countries in the region with the same point of view and problems that they’re struggling with at the moment.  There are members of the board elected many times from a few countries, which should be changed.

With my background in finance, I am passionate about the Ripe community.  My professional values can be summed up as follows:

  • Some ideas for cost reduction.
  • Reviewing the annual charge scheme.
  • Starting some projects to increase the contribution of LIR’s.

Internet governance is no place for politics; there should be equal rights for all members from all countries in the Ripe NCC region.  Sanctions from one country either inside or outside of this region should not affect Ripe NCC services.  Regarding this, many LIR’s in the region have serious issues with Ripe NCC services.  I truly believe I have solutions that could overcome this situation, such as:

  • Increasing communication between RIR to exchange experiences and facilitate IP transfer between RIRs.
  • Attempts to make reserve IP’s usable and compensate for part of the IPv4 shortage.
  • Trying to spread the use of IPv6 and assist in IPv6 implementation in LIR networks.
  • Strive to lower the costs of Ripe NCC and to reduce the annual membership dues of the members.
  • Attempt to do projects to reduce or stop IP hijacking.
  • Trying to increase the constructive interaction between the members and facilitate the transfer of experience between the members.

Maria Häll

Background

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Maria Häll is Master of Science in Computer Science and CEO for SUNET, Swedish University Network - a branch of The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet).

Maria previously worked at the Government Offices of Sweden (Regeringskansliet) at the division for IT Policy and as political advisor for the IT-minister. Maria has extensive experience of working with ICT, broadband and Internet Policy issues, both in the private and public sectors, on local, national and international levels.

Maria is a member of the NORDUnet Board since 2013 and chair of the Board from April 2020. NORDUnet is joint collaboration by the five Nordic National Research and Education Networks.

Maria has been a member of RIPE NCC Executive Board since 2014.

Her previous positions, among others, include chair of the ISOC Swedish Chapter, co-chair for the RIPE Cooperation Working Group and vice chair for the ICANN Government Advisory Committee (GAC). 

Motivation

Maria has been engaged with the RIPE community for many years and puts a very high value on the important activities and role of RIPE NCC, its members and the RIPE Community. Especially in these times as the internet is getting more and more important and engaging more and different sectors and players.

Maria is, therefore, with her passion for technology and long and broad experience, looking forward to continuing to contribute and support the work of the RIPE NCC together with the members and the RIPE Community.

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariahall/

Raymond Jetten

Background

Raymond Jetten

Raymond Jetten was born in the Netherlands, but made a permanent move to Finland in December 1988. In the Netherlands, his first computer to computer connections were done in school and at home through a BBS in the beginning of the eighties.

Having started out in the ISP industry more than 20 years ago, working for a small ISP, Raymond has since taken on a variety of roles in the field, playing a key role in several mergers, including EUnet.

At present, Raymond works for a Finnish Telecommunications ICT and online service company, Elisa Oyj, where he is mainly involved in IP number management and peering. He has been active in the RIPE community since 2006, his interests including IPv6 (IPv6 WG co-chair) , routing and community driven projects.

He is also involved in nog.fi events, and as an operator working close with TREX, a local exchange.

Motivation

Having been part of the RIPE community for many years I feel it's time to give something back to the community. During the past RIPE meetings I’ve been helping new people out as a mentor, getting new people and the well-known together. I hope I can now step up and help the members and serve the community even better. I strongly believe in a fair and safe internet for everyone.

Christian Kaufmann

Background

Christian Kaufmann

Christian studied Computer Science at the Georg Simon Ohm Fachhochschule in Nuremberg, and during his undergraduate years, he started his own ISP and web design company. He holds a Master of Science in Advanced Networking from The Open University, which is the first of its kind in the world.

Christian had several consultant and network engineer roles for local ISPs before he moved on to managerial roles for international companies, including Technical Operations Manager for Cable & Wireless and GNOC Manager at Easynet. This led to an interest in peering and interconnection, and he transitioned to Global IP Peering Manager for TeliaSonera, where he managed the peering connections for a global transit-free network.

Simultaneously, he engaged himself in the community. For instance, he joined the AMS-IX Executive Board, where he served for six years, three of them as the Chairman, and co-founded FranceIX to which he came back four years ago, and currently serves as the Chairman and President. He is also very active in the RIPE community, where he has attended every meeting for more than a decade and also served as a Co-Chair of the RIPE MAT WG. In the last nine years, Christian served on the RIPE NCC Executive Board as Secretary, and in the last year, as Chairman. Overall, Christian looks back on more than a decade of uninterrupted board experience in various organisations.

Currently, he is the VP of Network Technology at Akamai Technologies, where he oversees the Engineering and Architecture for Akamai's Datacenter, Hardware and Networks. Akamai has graciously allowed him time to work on these community projects, and he has agreed to do the same for RIPE.

Motivation

The past three years:

Three years ago I promised the members that there would be a focus on the following topics:

Lower the membership fees and keeping the RIPE NCC financially stable at the same time.
-> Done 😊

Continue the collaboration with other RIRs - we are one global registry and the accuracy and stability of it concerns us all.
-> For this, we talked to other RIRs especially APNIC, and continued to work on common projects also around the accuracy of the database and stability, training and operationalising RPKI.

How can the board itself improve, and ensure that with the growing amount of members and the change of the member base we are still up for the job?
-> We attacked this via different ways: training, team building events, regular strategy sessions, surveys and focus meetings with members. On top of this, a new company risk analysis and mitigation framework was introduced.

In the world of Regulators, Internet Governance and their changing landscapes, trusted and neutral data is very important. The RIPE NCC already provides a lot of information via Whois, RIPEstat, RIPE Atlas, etc. I want to help to ensure our data is correct and we keep our neutral and trusted status.
-> The accuracy of the database was measured, and we worked on improving it. Regarding RIPEstat and our country reports, we are seen by many stakeholders as a neutral and trusted source of information.

I also led the transition phase between the former Managing Director leaving and the handover to the interim management team, as well as hiring the new Managing Director.

The next three years:

For the next three years, besides looking into how to lower the membership fees 😊 and providing greater transparency about our suppliers, I want to focus on these three areas:

  • Supporting and guiding the transition of the organisation, which is going through an organisation and Managing Director change.
  • Continue the collaboration with other RIRs - we are one global registry and the accuracy and stability of it concerns us all– this includes operationalising RPKI and making it a stable and high availability service.
  • As the world of the Internet Governance is ever-changing, we not only have to deal with sanctions against our members but also regulation and policy changes in our service region, through which we have to find a way to navigate.

I am committed to bringing my board and management experience to the service of the members and the NCC to ensure continuation and stability in these changing times.

And after this I would work on a handover for the position of the Chairman, before I would finally step down after this election term.

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ckatminxsdotnet/

Sergey Myasoedov

Background

Sergey M - photo

I was born in Russia, and I’ve been living in the Czech Republic since 2007. My interest in computers and networks first began when I was a child.

I started my career in ICT during my university time: I have worked in banks, ISPs and other IT-related companies. I have built and maintained access, corporate and service networks. At the moment, I work for an ISP and LIR in the Czech Republic, providing service to customers from around the globe.

I have participated in the RIPE community since 2008. In 2010, I was a co-founder of the ENOG meetings, and in 2018, CSNOG for the operators from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Together with my colleagues, we've organised local community meetings for hundreds of people, attracting many speakers, and making the Internet better. I also take part in the different forms of Internet operators’ cooperation all over the world (NOGs, IETF, RIR meetings, etc.).

Motivation

Given my knowledge of the Internet industry, I believe that with my relationship to the Internet community, I will be a source of communication for the Executive Board. Members of the RIPE NCC should be well heard not just by the Executive Board, but also by the RIPE NCC management, and existence of such feedback is a current task for the Board members. I am ready to help establish cooperation between the Internet community, the RIPE NCC and other Internet entities. 

Jordi Palet Martinez

Background

jordi_palet_alta2.jpg

I started to learn programming, computers and electronics at the age of 8, and since them has been involved in this field, having worked, setup and managed several companies, in positions ranging from software developing and circuits design, to product management and CEO/CTO.

My first contribution to the community, after a few years of active participation, was being elected as board member, and then chairman (1998), of @aslan (the Spanish Association for Networking, Connectivity and Open Systems).

I’ve been involved in the IETF (actively contributing since 2001) mainly in IPv6 development, having authored many IDs and a few RFCs and played the role of the Sergeant-at-arms for over 12 years. I also designed, set up and managed several R&D projects, which also resulted in co-authoring and publishing 8 books, and contributed with articles, papers, tutorials and presentations in hundreds of events, including ISOC, ICANN and the 5 RIRs related ones.

In 2002 I started to participate in RIPE meetings and in the RIPE community, and then became increasingly involved also in the other four RIRs and related communities.

Since then, I’ve been contributing with free IPv6 trainings in every country in the LACNIC region, as well as in the AFRINIC and APNIC regions, but also a few in ARIN and RIPE NCC. Similarly, I’m a very active participant in many RIR and NOG mailing lists.

I’m a tireless participant in most of the RIR meetings, and authored about 100 policy proposals among all the RIRs, most of these having reached consensus. This shows my strong commitment towards consensus for the good for the community, even if sometimes, it means defending positions which may be against my own personal/business view, and this has been very evident in many policy proposals.

Further to that, for the last 20 years, I’ve been engaged in IPv6 training, consultancy, strategy and deployment projects for customers in the private and public sectors, including ISPs, government networks, universities, corporate networks, data centers, SMEs networks and regulators, in over 150 countries.

Motivation

I have a strong interest in the global community's development and ensuring that everyone can participate in comparable conditions.

I’m not a RIPE NCC (neither any other RIR) member, but I work with members (and non-members) from all the regions, so I can offer a balanced and independent view. I want to commit to ensuring that the board is able to hear and communicate in an open and transparent way, with all, members and non-members of the global community.

Even though the collaboration with other RIRs has already been happening for a long time, I believe there are further ways to improve it, share knowledge and efforts, reducing costs for all.

We must look forward to the continued sustainability of the RIPE NCC, looking into aspects such as well-balanced charging schemes and prioritization of our activities as time goes and the society evolves, ensuring we surpass critical situations that may repeat what is happening now to all of us.

We shall continue our efforts to work with all the different sectors involved in our global community, such as service providers, enterprises, academia, regulators, governments and LEAs, not forgetting the end-users, looking into the continued growth of Internet, in secure ways for all, especially considering the challenges that IoT is bringing.

I want to commit to everything the community may ask for and the board can do, offering my time, effort, experience, knowledge and openness, the same way, or even better if possible, I’ve been contributing to the global community for the last 20 years. 

William Sylvester

Background

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William is the Executive Vice-President for Exchange Services at Addrex, where he has spent the past decade collaborating within the various global Internet communities, stakeholders, and service providers to enable the Internet to meet their customer demands while transitioning to IPv6.

William has over 25 years of experience as an executive of core Internet infrastructure companies, including working for Network Solutions Inc. (acquired by VeriSign) on the InterNIC project, which solely managed Internet numbering, domain names, and directory services for Internet at that time. William’s work at the InterNIC grew into the Regional Internet Registries (RIR) system and the registry-registrar model in the 1990s.

William started his love of networking computers together with BBSes in the mid-1980s, using gopher and wais before “the web” existed. In the 1990s, he had super-user privileges on a.root-server.net (198.41.0.4) running on a Sun Microsystems Sparc. At that time, the root servers were authoritative for the top-level domains (TLDs) as well as the DNS root, and all servers received their updates from a-root. William started configuring routers on IGS and AGS+ and has extensive experience with UNIX.

As a long-time volunteer contributing to the RIPE community, William currently co-chairs the RIPE Database Working Group. As chair of the RIPE Accountability Task Force, he worked with the community and the RIPE NCC Secretariat to document, review, and publish the findings for the RIPE community's accountability post-IANA transition.

William holds an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA).

Motivation

  • Provide organisational stability
  • Deliver exceptional services
  • Maintain fiscal responsibility

Provide organizational stability

The RIPE NCC was the true shining light of the Internet system with its decades of management continuity. The many changes in the senior team and RIPE NCC staff over the past few years, the organisation has faced the rapidly evolving current environment without its deep institutional knowledge. The Executive Board needs to support and foster the organisation with a keen understanding of the type leadership to provide consistency and stability for all members.

Deliver exceptional services

RIPE NCC needs to ensure all services, tools, and training provided to the community are done in a professional manner with a focus on the needs of all members. It is important for all aspects of the organisation to maintain an emphasis on member experience.

We must continue to focus on securing routing and making RPKI accessible for every network operator. This will require investment in tools and technology to provide the Internet with a more robust RPKI solution. RIPE NCC should support audit reporting, sponsor RPKI projects, development effort, and expand the RIPE RIS research facility. I believe that RPKI is important and will work to make sure the budget includes responsible spending to further routing security and RPKI.

We will continue to encourage the adoption of IPv6, providing the resources for organizations to migrate to IPv6. The necessary tools to increase the utility of IPv6. RIPE NCC will need to continue supporting IPv6 awareness and assistance. 

Maintain fiscal responsibility

As members, we require RIPE NCC to maintain fiscal discipline. We must keep member fees affordable while providing member services that maximise value. This requires fiscal diligence to identify which projects, programs, and expenses drive the greatest value to the members and the community.

In recent years, RIPE NCC has greatly expanded revenue through rapid growth of LIRs. This has created an environment with resources that are able to fund projects for the whole community, not just RIPE members. RIPE has been fortunate and used that good fortune to benefit the entire Internet community.

However, we must be aware of the potential for our fortunes to change as the world has experienced in the first part of 2020. If elected, I will work diligently with the other board members to be dynamic in our thinking and creative with solutions to maintain stability for the organisation and the community.

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamsylvester/