[ncc-services-wg] New on RIPE Labs: Our Approach to the Cloud

In message <e3b2a356-bba5-d4a4-4567-aa8ea820c025 at time-travellers.org>, 
Shane Kerr <shane at time-travellers.org> wrote:

>Ronald F. Guilmette,
>
>On 21/11/2019 21.06, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
>> In message <9738c6af-9361-2957-a451-8c1baf0b812d at ripe.net>,
>> Mirjam Kuehne <mir at ripe.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> We have plans to move some of our technical infrastructure to the cloud...
>> 
>> Having always been a critic of excessive secrecy, as practiced by all
>> five of the RIRs, I just want to say that I am heartily in favor of this
>> transition and that I greatly look forward to the day when, due to one
>> or another of the various still-not-fully resolved CPU bugs that have
>> been revealed in the press over the past year or so, all of the information
>> that RIPE has been hiding from researchers and the general public will
>> become available to a wider audience as a result of the migration of this
>> information to "the cloud".
>
>Interesting.
>
>I assume you mean the RIPE NCC and not RIPE? I generally find the RIPE 
>NCC to be relatively transparent.
>
>What information would you like to see?

My apologies for not responding to this sooner.  I have had a lot on
my plate.

The things that I, or any competent investigator looking for clear signs
of malfeasance would like to see are pretty much all of the things that
we are not allowed, at present, to see.  Here's the short list, in something
approximating priority order:

     *)  The legal incorporation documents for each and every resource
         holder, ESPECIALLY, but not limited to those for any entities
         that are, or that claim to be incorporated in "opaque" jurisdictions,
         specifically ones that do not, at present, make such documents
         publicly available via the web.

     *)  The full names, titles, contact information AND signatures of any
         party or parties claiming or purporting to act on behalf of each
         resource holder, i.e. in any interactions with RIPE NCC.

     *)  All information relating to the sources of any and all payments
         made by resource holders to RIPE or RIPE NCC, including bank
         account numbers and routing numbers.

     *)  Lastly and of lowest priority, all documents submitted to RIPE
         NCC as part of any initial or subsequent review relating to the
         qualification of any resource holder for the resources requested.

As I understand it, RIPE NCC is quite deliberately and distinctly NOT in
any sense "transparent" with respect to ANY of the above categories of
things.  And due to this very deliberate opacity on the part of RIPE NCC
(which, as I understand it, is largely at the behest of the membership)
no outsider can even begin to judge if there is any fishy skullduggery
going on, e.g. with respect to the way valuable IPV4 blocks have been,
are being, or will be awarded, or with respect to the true identities of
the beneficial owners of the entities to which such awards have been made.

It is apparently in the eye of the beholder whether ot not this all-
consuming opacity on the part of RIPE NCC is a bug or a feature.  Speaking
only as one who looks for fundementally crooked activities on the Internet,
of which there are plenty, in every region, I can only say that for me,
all of this opacity is quite unambiguously a bug, and not a feture.


Regards,
rfg