Re: A top-down RPKI model a threat to human freedom? (was Re: Level 3's IRR Database)

[Benson Schliesser <bensons () queuefull net>]

On Feb 1, 2011, at 3:43 PM, Arturo Servin wrote:

>       Is it really a better alternative? Do we want to pay the cost of a fully distributed RPKI architecture?
>
>       Or do we just abandon the idea of protecting the routing infrastructure?
>
>       There is no free-lunch, we just need to select the price that we want to pay.

I agree there is no free-lunch.

Randy Bush addressed the problem, in a recent email, by contrasting his "security" personality against his mistrust of 
authority. (That's my summary, not his words.)  And I think that's exactly what I'm struggling with.  I want to secure 
the routing infrastructure, but I don't completely trust centralized regimes.  At their best, they're a target for 
exploitation - at their worst, they're authoritarian.

Randy was kind enough to point me toward http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-sidr-ltamgmt-00 which I'm in the process 
of reading.  Perhaps there is a way to balance between "fully distributed" and "centralized", e.g. by supporting 
multiple roots and different trust domains.

Cheers,
-Benson




> On 1 Feb 2011, at 16:29, Benson Schliesser wrote:
>
> > On Feb 1, 2011, at 11:14 AM, Christopher Morrow wrote:
> >
> > > On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 2:55 PM, Martin Millnert <millnert () gmail com> wrote:
> > > > Here be dragons,
> > > <snip>
> > > > It should be fairly obvious, by most recently what's going on in
> > > > Egypt, why allowing a government to control the Internet is a Really
> > > > Bad Idea.
> > >
> > > how is the egypt thing related to rPKI?
> > > How is the propsed rPKI work related to gov't control?
> >
> > In theory at least, entities closer to the RPKI root (RIRs, IANA) could invalidate routes for any sort of policy 
> > reasons.  This might provide leverage to certain governments, perhaps even offering the ability to control routing 
> > beyond their jurisdiction.
> >
> > As an example, it's imaginable that the US government could require IANA or ARIN to delegate authority to the NSA 
> > for a Canadian ISP's routes.  Feel free to replace the RIR/LIR and country names, to suit your own example.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > -Benson