[db-wg] proposal: disallow creation of new non-hierarchically named AS-SET objects

On 23 Nov 2022, at 16:56, denis walker wrote:

> One empty set is the same as any other empty set. We only need one
> clearly defined and easily recognisable empty set and we have that,
> AS-NULL. If I create an empty set, AS-WALKER it doesn't do anything
> that AS-NULL can't do.

Sure.

What I have in mind is AS-NIALLSPECIAL, which I populate with a list of
AS numbers which I want to advertise to let others know that these
are to be handled in some special way, unlike those in AS-NIALLNORMAL.

According to operational circumstances, there might be periods, even
long ones, with nothing special going on; AS-NIALLSPECIAL would then be
empty, but only for as long as this continued to be the case.

Something I don't know is whether this hypothetical scenario is
operationally realistic or simply a product of my certainly ill-informed,
and perhaps over-active, imagination. If it were the latter, then a
special case just for AS-NULL would be sufficient.

Otherwise, inferring equivalence to AS-NULL of any set which happens
to have been empty for some specified period seems unsafe.

I'll be happy to learn that I'm imagining trouble that can never arise.

Niall