Mark,

I think trying to implement some kind of license requirement for DFZ participants is a step in the wrong direction and a waste of time and money. How would you even enforce it? If the goal is just to provide a bigger barrier to "kids born after 9/11", why not just increase RIR fees, or add an age requirement for individuals? And anyway, why do we need to increase that barrier? What problem does that actually solve? Are "kids born after 9/11" the ones propagating route leaks? I don't think they are. But the reason for that is not that they're necessarily more skilled operators than "adults born before 9/11" or anyone else - it's that they are being filtered appropriately by the likes of Vultr, etc. Verizon (and other large incumbents) could learn something from them.

Let's try to stay away from exclusivity for exclusivity's sake and actually focus on solving the real problems we have.

On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 12:45 PM Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.com> wrote:


On 2/Aug/20 01:44, Ryan Hamel wrote:
Matt,

Why are you blaming the ease of use on the vendor, for the operators lack of knowledge regarding BGP? That is like blaming a vehicle manufacturer for a person pressing the gas pedal in a car and not giving a toss about the rules of the road. The base foundation regarding the rules of the road mostly apply the same for driving a car, truck, bus, and semi/lorry truck. There is no excuse for ignorance just because the user interface is different (web browser vs. SSH client).

Actually, there is.

One has to actually acquire knowledge about not only driving a car, but driving it in public. That knowledge is then validated by a gubbermint-sanctioned driver's license test. If you fail, you aren't allowed to drive. If you are caught driving without a driver's license, you pay the penalty.

There is no requirement for a license in order to run power into a router and hook it up to the Internet. This is the problem I have with the current state of how we support BGP actors.

Adding a take on this, there are kids born after 9/11, with IP allocations and ASNs experimenting in the DFZ right now. If they can make it work, and not cause harm to other members in this community, it clearly demonstrates a lack of knowledge, or honest human error (which will never go away).

We should not be celebrating this.



Anything that can be used, can be misused. With that said, why shouldn't ALL BGP software implementations encourage best practice? They decided RPKI validation was a good thing.

The larger question is we should find a way to make our industry genuinely qualification-based, and not "free for all that decides they want to try it out".

I don't yet know how to do that, but we certainly need to start thinking more seriously about it. Kids born after 9/11 successfully experimenting on a global network is not where the bar ought to be.

Mark.