All,
I think there's big confusion here between what's called in the industry "Settlement Free Peering" and "paid transit services."
Comcast offers "Ethernet Dedicated Internet" service in my area (Washington, DC). They offer: Static IPs, DHCP and a BGP session. In this service, Comcast will not allow the user to BGP to a third party with the intention to use Comcast for carrying the 3rd party's traffic. This is simply called "paid transit service". When we refer to getting a BGP session with another AS for AMPRNet, look for "BGP transit service" plans.
Peering would be considered traffic between Comcast and another large ISP (i.e. the peering agreement would be relevant if e.g. USCD - AS7377, wanted to peer with Comcast). That's called [settlement free] peering (in a Tier 1 ISP's terminiolgy).
About the product: https://business.comcast.com/enterprise/products-services/data-networking/e…
For a list of cities with the product: https://business.comcast.com/enterprise/products-services/data-networking/m…
73,
- Lynwood
KB3VWG
I replied to you from my gmail address
Bob
On 2020-02-24 17:27, G1FEF via 44Net wrote:
Bob, nothing received from you. I have sent you an email, please reply
to if or let me know here if you don't receive it.
Regards,
Chris
Chris,
I wrote you an email from my address as listed in the portal.
Hopefully you received it this time.
Bob
On 2020-02-24 07:24, G1FEF via 44Net wrote:
Hi Bob,
On 24 Feb 2020, at 12:14, Bob Tenty via 44Net <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> wrote:
Chris,
Sorry to write you in this way but I tried to reach you since the end of
October of last year with
emails without any reply. Also an email from the portal itself received no
reply
Please email me here: chris(a)g1fef.co.uk that should reach me.
Thanks,
Chris
Chris,
Sorry to write you in this way but I tried to reach you since the end of
October of last year with
emails without any reply. Also an email from the portal itself received no
reply
I need the follow change.
I route and have an entry for the subnet 44.135.92.0/24
Ron, VE3CGR wants to route the 44.135.92.8/29 part himself. He is
registered in the portal.
Can you add 44.135.92.8/29 to this entry? Please leave the rest of my
44.135.92.0/24 subnet intact.
Many thanks,
Bob (Boudewijn) VE3TOK
-- There is nothing permanent except change Heraclitus
Good evening.
I am looking for someone who would be an expert in BGP and using Comcast
for the transport.
Please contact me off list. I have some questions I'm looking to get
answered.
Thank you,
William Lewis / KG6BAJ
wlewis(a)myhostingsource.com
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Quan Zhou via 44Net <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
> Sorry to bother you with a rant, but I'm feeling an urge to ask that what's happening on the AMPR/ARDC.
Thank you for your rant.
> ## Background
> A few weeks ago I have received a harsh email from Chris G1FEF accusing me for announcing a prefix was assigned to me. In that case, the claimed reason is that the prefix wasn't listed on the AMPR portal.
> I tried to clear things up by sending him the LOA from WB6CYT, which he claims that is NOT legitimate, also denied possibility there could a bug in the portal caused this. I have also complied with his demands on even more information including all conversations between me and Brian regarding that the assignment. Eventually he continued to ask for even more personal information without justification, threatening that not complying may cause "close of account".
> ## Questions
> 1. Has all previous assignment by WB6CYT been overruled? Or am I singled out?
Previous assignments by Brian (WB6CYT) have not generally been overruled.
Brian took very seriously his duty to both make space available to real
amateur radio operations and to deny space to opportunists trying to poach
the space for commercial, personal, spam/malware or other purposes.
Many people requested assignments, and most of them received
assignments. Those assignments are and were recorded in the ARDC
portal, which was initially programmed by Chris (G1FEF), and operated and
evolved by both Brian and Chris. The data in it was supplied by
Brian, by net44 users who register to receive allocations, and by the
volunteer regional coordinators who make allocations.
Any collection of detailed allocations too complicated to fit in one
person's memory or on the back of an envelope needs a definitive register
that provides the collective memory of all the past decisions. The portal
was and remains that definitive register.
If your allocation is not in that register, then we'd need to figure out
why it isn't. The ARDC Board has access to some of Brian's stored
email, as well as backup dumps of the Portal databases, so we can do
some searching among those if needed. So far, your rant did not mention
the particular IP address allocations involved, so we have had little
information to start from.
Most allocations are made via country-based and region-based volunteer
coordinators, who all have portal accounts with permission to make
sub-allocations in their region; Brian did not have to adjudicate most
of these.
Apparently your allocation is from the China subnet, and apparently
Brian was still handling those allocations. My guess is that he did not
have a volunteer coordinator for China who both had sufficient
experience and that Brian trusted to do the job well.
> 2. What are the current rules on allocation now? A snapshot of the latest version of ToS is at: https://web.archive.org/web/20190731094938/https://www.ampr.org/terms-of-se… -- It does not requires personal information beyond ASN addresses.
The current rules on allocation have not changed. However, Brian is
no longer with us to make decisions based on years of expertise. So
anyone who would take over that job will make a number of mistakes as
they gain similar expertise. Some of those mistakes will be in
allocating addresses to requesters who don't deserve them. Some of
the mistakes will be in denying addresses to requesters who do deserve
them, or in demanding more scrutiny than is warranted when requests
are made.
An allocation of 768 IP addresses, such as yours, which has considerable
monetary value if used commercially, will naturally get more scrutiny
than a typical request for a /29 that only has 8 addresses and can't be
routed via BGP.
The Chinese agency that licenses amateur radio operators, the State
Radio Regulation of China (http://www.srrc.org.cn) does not appear to
provide an English-language portal for looking up amateur radio
licenses. This currently makes it a more manual process to verify the
license status of Chinese hams. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_licensing_in_China
(I hope some 44net users from Asia will improve that Wikipedia page,
which is still mostly a stub page.)
> 3. What is G1FEF's role in the allocation, which are the rights that ARDC holds has been delegated to this guy along.
G1FEF has been informally trying to continue providing service to
amateurs while the ARDC board and other volunteers scramble to pick up
the work that Brian was doing during his lifetime.
ARDC and G1FEF have been negotiating a contract that would specify just
what rights and powers ARDC would delegate to G1FEF, and which ARDC
would retain for exercise by its board (and eventually by a hired staff,
which we have been trying to hire the first person of). The first draft
contract was full of legalese that one side or the other didn't like,
and it also raised some more complex issues such as international
privacy practices, so we are re-drafting, consulting lawyers, and
continuing to negotiate.
> 4. The holding-the-ID-in-a-photo-of-you practice is pretty common when dealing with financial institutions and websites frequently deals with fraudsters. Since LIR, RIR, and BGP upstream also requires and validates these ID, Why this is necessary to do it again?
People who get legacy 44.x.y.z IP addresses from 44net don't have to get
addresses from an LIR or RIR, so LIR/RIR practices don't provide any
safeguard for 44net addresses.
Our previous policy, created and enforced by Brian, was not to demand
such identity documents of everyone. But Brian did reserve the right to
ask more questions and collect more information when he encountered a
situation that he thought was questionable, and to use his own judgment
in deciding whether to make an allocation. And he sometimes consulted
with the board about how to resolve such situations.
> 5. Is Chris Smith, G1FEF capable of handling sensitive personal data? He's handling data as natural person, or an legal entity that ARDC approves?
At the moment, as a natural person; he's a volunteer. One of the issues
being negotiated in the draft contract, and with lawyers, is to what
extent ARDC will collect sensitive personal data, how it would safeguard
that data that it does collect, and to what extent ARDC will be subject
to privacy controls such as the European GDPR. These issues have been
handled informally up to the time that Brian died.
The current situation is that when Chris requests identification photos
or documents, he examines them and then deletes them after approval.
> 6. If there's another change, do anyone with a allocation has to go through the same process again?
Since we haven't defined any changes yet, we also haven't decided that
issue.
> I see that we already have a problem with transparency, now we got bureaucracy? Also it's not my problem that the assignment wasn't added to the portal.
It is fortunate that small, informal organizations still have room to
operate in today's world, and can provide positive benefits to society.
ARDC under Brian's leadership was such an organization; the board helped
him around the edges, but he was our leader, and he also did most of the
work. Now we have no leader experienced in exactly what Brian did. As
organizations grow and become more formal, the world expects a degree of
impartiality, predictability, and adherence to rules that reduces the
flexibility of the informal processes.
Quan, you are simultaneously asking that you be given the benefit of an
informal process that provided you with the allocation you claim, and
yet also asking that we provide predictable rules and adhere to them,
rather than continuing informally. There is clearly a tension between
these extremes. The ARDC board (all volunteers) and the technical
volunteers such as Chris and the regional coordinators are trying to
chart a middle course. Thank you for your help in pointing out some
of the implications of the choices we are trying to make.
It DOES seem to be your problem that the assignment wasn't added to the
portal. If your assignment was in the portal, then your allocation
would not be getting the scrutiny it is currently getting. As the
wiki says in the "Requesting a block" page:
https://wiki.ampr.org/wiki/Requesting_a_block
"You must request an amprnet block direct from the Portal. First you
must create your account at the Portal. Once you do, you must
login..."
https://wiki.ampr.org/wiki/Announcing_your_allocation_directly
"Apply for your AMPRNet allocation via the Portal. Check the Direct
box to indicate that your connection will be using a direct
announcement of the subnet (via the BGP protocol).
"Upon verification and approval, the AMPRNet administrator will
provide authorization to your ISP allowing them to announce your
allocation."
If only one of your three /24 allocations is in the portal, then how did
Brian, the very meticulous AMPRNet administrator end up providing you
with a Letter of Authorization for the others?
> Best Regards,
> Quan
Best regards back to you,
John Gilmore, W0GNU
ARDC board member
Tracy N4LGH,
I drafted the OpenWrt Wiki with the help of others on the mailing list. The instructions in the Wiki definitely work - I've been running an AMPRNet node on OpenWrt for approximately seven years. I have ampr-ripd compiled for most of my routers.
I'm not sure how I missed your previous requests for assistance; but I'm willing to help setup an official OpenWrt firmware installation.
73,
- LynwoodKB3VWG
Hi. As you all know, Brian Kantor WB6CYT passed away suddenly last
month. Brian did so much for AMPRNet from the very beginning that he'll
be impossible to fully replace. We're trying but it's hard, especially
since he was a close personal friend.
Chris Smith, G1FEF (chris(a)g1fef.co.uk) has kindly volunteered to take
over Brian's portal work and to handle portal and BGP allocation
requests. Please direct queries to him.
73, Phil Karn, KA9Q
President, ARDC
I switched over to vultr a few weeks ago. To get my BGP announced there,
they needed to do the manual verification. After 1 week of no response by
the ampr.org team I have had to start with a new ticket and the manual
process again.
Is there more than one person than can validate the manual BGP verification
process?
Corey N3FE
> I know this process can be invasive but you would be surprised how
many bogus requests I've received over the years. I have to assume this
is because of the scarcity of IPv4 addresses
I agree with that! I also get requests from people who just want to use
it for internet hosting unrelated to amateur radio, and without
mentioning a valid callsign at all.
Of course Quan also does not mention his callsign in his mailinglist
message. A lookup on QRZ.COM indicates he likely has a BG3 callsign,
but for me it would be suspicious when I receive a communication like
that because any radio amateur knows that it is customary to use a
callsign rather than only first and last name when communicating between
radio amateurs.
Just last week I got (as the coordinator for Netherlands) a request from
someone likely living in Denmark (a nearby country) with just a fake
word in the callsign field. Maybe he got turned away by the Danish
coordinator and tried with me, maybe he wasn't even aware of the
subnetting by country, I don't know.
But we really need to watch out for people trying to masquerade as a
radio amateur and trying to obtain IP space for free.
Of course it doesn't help that the portal does not convey that
information. It is likely that googling for services offering IP space
somehow refers those people directly to the portal or to a subpage of
the wiki, they read some paragraphs about obtaining IP space and never
see what is the target audience for this system.
That is mentioned only in some toplevel pages, not in the actual
procedures for obtaining addresses.
Someone from outside our community may not know what "callsign" means
and just enter a netname as they would use in whois.
So there is room for improvement there.
About the ID and personal info requirement, I certainly have not been
asked for an ID photo and it would be a problem to have such things on
file indeed.
But having some personal contact info (like name, callsign, e-mail and
street address) should be fine as it is required to contact the
registrant in case of problems.
Rob PE1CHL
