IP Addresses: Policies and Politics Dmitry Kohmanyuk Hostmaster Ltd, Founder NRO Number Council Member ( ) IGF-UA Kyiv 2014

One Global Internet Global Internet infrastructure transcends borders. Many companies operate in more than one country, and have to obey legislation and regulation in all of them. It is getting increasingly hard for users and companies to operate in this interconnected world and conform to existing regulatory approaches.

IP addresses IP addresses are global identifiers for devices connected to the network. Currently, IP address assignment itself have been done through regional internet registries (RIRs). See RFC 7020 (update to RFC 2050). In particular, our region is served by RIPE NCC, Dutch non-profit organization, located in Amsterdam.

IP address types IPv4: IPv6: 2001:DB8::FF00:42:ABCD

IP address policies Community input: working groups, forums, mailing lists, other discussions. Local and global policies are built bottom-up. Global policies are coordinated between RIRs and submitted to IANA for implementation.

IP Policy Players Global Internet User Community RIRs: AFRINIC, APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC, RIPE NRO ICANN ASO IANA

Exhaustion of IPv4 addresses We are now close to exhaustion of version 4 addresses, and therefore conservation of existing use and restrictions to new allocations are the norm (RIPE would only give 1024 addresses to any of its members, so- called LIRs.) This is an example of address policy in action. Here is current data about IPv4 address exhaustion:

Political discussion within RIPE Address Policy Working Group Recently, due to political change in Crimea there was a lively discussion on Address Policy Working Group mailing list, All messages sent to list are archived at

Response by RIPE Managing Director There was a response published on the list, by Managing Director Axel Pawlik, which said: <<< Max, all, the foremost concern of the RIPE NCC as a neutral membership organisation is to ensure accurate registration of Internet number resources. To do this, we rely on the information and documentation provided by our members. This documentation must come from a national authority and prove that the member exists as a legal entity. Russia and Ukraine both have national authorities that can confirm the existence of legal entities, so the RIPE NCC will accept documentation from whichever national authority the member chooses. cheers, Axel >>>

RIPE Legal Council Opinion There was also official legal council opinion posted on <<< Dear all, The RIPE NCC has the right to be contractually engaged with and to provide services to any legal entity, unless there are restrictions by law. Currently, Dutch law does not restrict our contractual engagement with, or provision of our services to, legal entities in Crimea. Dutch law does not restrict the RIPE NCC from using any means it finds appropriate as proof that a legal entity exists. Documents issued by national authorities are considered to be sufficient proof. The RIPE NCC can neither recognise nor deny one state’s authority over a region. Given the situation in Crimea, the RIPE NCC is striving to facilitate the provision of its services to network operators in this area and does not wish to deny services for political reasons. Kind regards, Athina Fragkouli Legal Counsel RIPE NCC >>>

Discussion I would like to invite audience for discussions of IP address space use within RIPE community and also here.

Bonus: Renesys Research, Dyn Inc. JULY 31, 2014 DOUG MADORY No turning back: Russia activates Crimean cable