On 9/19/12, John Osmon <josmon@rigozsaurus.com> wrote:
On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 12:07:33AM -0500, Jimmy Hess wrote:
But your unconnected network, is unaffected. Ahh... But the network may not be unconnected. Just because *you* don't have a path to it doesn't mean others are similarly disconnected.
I'm aware of the existence of networks that are only connected to limited number of networks. The fact that they exist, doesn't particularly diminish the danger, that their "apparently unused" addressing will become a target for someone. It would be wrong and broken, but that doesn't mean it is not going to happen.
Such a network would not have $0 in loss/damage when the partners can't reach it due to a rogue announcement.
If they wanted to make a case about it, they would likely need to find evidence that outweighs even their own negligence in the matter. There's no accepted practice that says accept inter-domain announcements for your own prefixes that aren't supposed to be announced outside your network.... The announcement also wouldn't be rogue, if the announcer had persuaded the RIR under whatever policy was in effect at the time, to assign the addresses. There's a fork there, between two different sorts of risks.... * (Non-legitimate) Example: Some networks run by massive Tier 1 providers that for whatever reason decides to stop accepting the whole concept of "unconnected networks", an example of this would be Bell Canada, Level3, ATT, or Verizon just decides to pick some random /8 they see as "unconnected", claim that /8 and start announcing it, and starts renumbering massive numbers of CPEs into the space. Within a couple weeks, each of the other Tier 1s, "grabs" one of those "unconnected" /8s; or the Tier1's work out a deal to share it, totally outside the RIR process. A second similar, but totally unrelated risk, for the operator of the unconnected network, is their RIR policies are adjusted, and revokation of the " perceived unconnected" /8 becomes imminent.
The Internet is not the same from all viewpoints.
That works, until there is a sufficient scarcity of resources to make major players desparate. Ultimately it will be the management of networks with the largest numbers of eyeballs, that decide which viewpoint is "correct". -- -JH