Experts of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ took part in RIPE 81, a conference held online on October 27-30.
The impact of the pandemic on the industry was one of the conference’s most important program items. For example, researcher Oliver Gasser from Max Planck Institute for Informatics delivered an interesting presentation at the plenary session on the way internet traffic has changed during the pandemic. In his research, Gasser analyzed three different hubs: a large European ISP, several IXPs in Europe and the United States, and the Madrid academic network, REDIMadrid. The conclusions show that there were significant changes that often required increasing capacities.
Russian researchers saw a similar picture. An entire section of TLDCON 2020 in September was dedicated to how the internet infrastructure in Russia and all over the world had coped with the pandemic. MSK-IX Director Yelena Voronina noted in her speech that a sharp increase in the load that followed the widespread switch to remote work resulted in growing number of DNS requests for coronavirus-related domains. This means today a clear conclusion can be drawn that forward planning is necessary considering the growing number of requests and corresponding increase in investment in infrastructure development.
New heads of the organizations were presented to the RIPE 81 participants: RIPE Chair Mirjam Kühne and Vice Chairman Niall O’Reilly. Over the past year, important changes took place in the management of RIPE and RIPE NCC: last year, the legend Axel Pawlik retired at RIPE 79. He was RIPE NCC Managing Director for 20 years. On May 1, 2020 Hans Petter Holen, who has presided RIPE since 2014, was appointed RIPE NCC Managing Director, and Mirjam Kühne replaced him in September 2020.
At the meeting of the DNS working group, RIPE NCC representative Anand Buddhdev talked about the launch of 11 new K-root mirrors; there are now 81 in total. K-root is one of the 13 root DNS server that ensure the operation of the DNS root zone on the internet. The K-root server is managed by RIPE NCC, and three of its mirrors are located in Russia: in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novosibirsk.
A meeting of the RIPE NCC working group on cooperation was held at the conference, with remarks from RIPE NCC External Communications Manager Maxim Burtikov. He said that achieving digital sovereignty was a regulatory trend at present, not just in Russia but around the world, with objective reasons behind this: the decreasing level of trust in the internet, because people increasingly come across fakes on social networks and online media, illegal use of their personal data and other problems.
“Regulation wins as a method to solve the problem with the lack of trust. In fact, here we can see two different and sometimes conflicting approaches, and as of today regionalization and localization prevail,” Maxim Burtikov noted. He called everyone to search for a balance between regulating and preserving freedom on the internet, between user-friendliness and safety, because the internet becomes useless with excessive regulation.
ISOC Senior Director for Technological Programs Andrei Robachevsky spoke about possible approaches to decisions, normative documents and policies regarding the global network. He noted that, for example, it was necessary to consider whether the proposed solution supports an abstract general network. It was also important to check whether this solution conflicts with the decentralized system of management and data transfer or the accepted addressing. It is also important to assess proposed changes to the network architecture. According to Andrei Robachevsky, it is possible to conclude whether a decision is useful only after a comprehensive assessment.
At the meeting of the Anti-Abuse Working Group, the discussion focused on the transition from the IETF-standardized abuse reporting format (ARF) to the expanded X-ARF, which has not passed standardization so far. The participants raised the issue of developing a course based on the best practices of the abuse information exchange. RIPE NCC representatives noted that RIPE was ready to begin such work with a corresponding level of the community’s support.
RIPE 81 has finished, but all the topical issues discussed there will be continued at another RIPE NCC’s event: ENOG 17, the Eurasia Network Operators Group, scheduled to take place online on November 9-13. This event is unique because it unites technical experts representing various ICT companies such as vendors, service operators, and internet providers. The conference is organized by RIPE NCC with support of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ.
