I think this qualifies as potentially operational.
Afrinic placed in receivership, board elections to be held in six months:
https://archive.ph/jOFE4
I think this qualifies as potentially operational.
Afrinic placed in receivership, board elections to be held in six months:
https://archive.ph/jOFE4
Looks like archive.ph is having problems. This is the original article.
Indeed - AFRINIC has been going through quite a bit over the few months – including loss of their governing board – but the receiver appointment actually provides a fairly straightforward path towards resolution.
See the NRO statement on this matter for specifics.
Thanks!
/John
John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers
[
NRO Statement on Appointment of an Official Receiver for AFRINIC | The Number Resource Organization
nro.net
](NRO Statement on Appointment of an Official Receiver for AFRINIC | The Number Resource Organization)
I don't see the appointment of a technical advisor to the receiver
related to the party which is suing AFRINIC as positive.
Sounds more like a conflict of interest to me.
Rubens
John,
The receiver appointed showed up at AFRINIC offices with an IT contractor who is a party directly involved in ligitations against AFRINIC.
How is such an act a fairly straight forward path forward. ?
Noah
Noah -
Indeed, that was a less than ideal situation – but I will note that the technical advisor was sent away by the Receiver once the Receiver was apprised of his litigation against AFRINIC.
Thanks,
/John
John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers
Noah -
Indeed, that was a less than ideal situation – but I will note that the technical advisor was sent away by the Receiver once the Receiver was apprised of his litigation against AFRINIC.
John
It was not a less than ideal situation. Please dont take things lightly here.
This issue of the so called Technical Advisor showing up with the Official Receiver at AFRINIC offices is a real concern to us considering the lack of transparency by the OR on the matter.
Noah
Noah -
I have had serious concerns with the operational risk posed by AFRINIC’s lack of governance body and lack of CEO – and thus have provided updates to NANOG several times to keep the community informed – but now there is finally a clear path to resolution; a situation that I see as far better than the convolutions of the organization over the past year with zero progress.
You indicate that there is a real concern with the appointment of a receiver for AFRINIC – despite the fact that the receiver is directed by the court to hold an election for a new board of directors within six months.
(Prior to this appointment, there has been no progress in getting AFRINIC back to normal member-elected governance – while one might have expected the individual directors to work together to achieve this outcome, that did not occur.)
Could you elaborate on the "real concern” that now exists so that operator community can better understand? The receiver may not operate transparently with respect to the community, but does operate under court supervision and authority – I concur that this isn’t the typical way that we’d like an RIR to operate, but it is quite reasonable stricture for an organization that remains inquorate for nearly a year.
Thanks,
/John
John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers
Are amicus briefs a thing in the court governing AFRINIC’s operations?
That’s a legal question, and so should be answered by a lawyer of competent jurisdiction… I am not such an individual, but I do understand that for parties that have a bona fide business interest with AFRINIC, it should be possible to contact the honorable receiver in order to obtain clarity on how any given matter will be handled.
Hope this helps,
/John
John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers
Not less than ideal? So was it ideal or more than ideal?
Owen
* nanog@nanog.org (Owen DeLong via NANOG) [Fri 15 Sep 2023, 19:26 CEST]:
A much better explanation of the situation can be found at:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/03/nrs_afrinic_review/
I also recommend that everyone who is not yet familiar with the issue google Lu Heng and Cloud Innovations, the Hong Kong based corporate entity in question which caused this.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=lu+heng+cloud+innovation
The short version of this is that a HK based corporate entity claims it is the legitimate “owner” of 7 million AFRINIC IPs.
XX was running for a Board Seat at APNIC and may have been in attendance in the recent APNIC conference.
Very controversial stuff there, with lessons to be learned and remembered and situations to be avoided at all costs.
Corruption and $$$$$$$.
A much better explanation of the situation can be found at:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/03/nrs_afrinic_review/
I also recommend that everyone who is not yet familiar with the issue google Lu Heng and Cloud Innovations, the Hong Kong based corporate entity in question which caused this.
Fair suggestion, but I wouldn’t say it’s fair to say Lu Heng or CI caused this. I’d say that AFRINIC’s
leadership at the time had an at least equal role in creating the problems and in failing to address
Them in a timely manner.
CI didn’t sue AFRINIC for nothing. AFRINIC, in violation of the actual text of their bylaws attempted
to revoke CI space and created major disruptions to a number of networks in the process. Had CI
not received the injunctions they got from the courts, likely the disruption would have been much
worse and caused some pretty wide-spread outages.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=lu+heng+cloud+innovation
The short version of this is that a HK based corporate entity claims it is the legitimate “owner” of 7 million AFRINIC IPs.
AFRINIC legitimately issued those (closer to 6M) IP addresses to Cloud Innovation based on justifications submitted. AFRINIC then attempted, using claims that usage out of region is not permitted by the bylaws
(It is not prohibited by the bylaws, feel free to read them yourself), to reclaim those addresses.
AFRINIC whois and the courts have confirmed that Cloud Innovation is the rightful registrant of those
addresses at the time and as of now. Until a court rules otherwise (which is very unlikely at this point),
they don’t “own” the addresses, but they do “own” the rights to those registrations in the AFRINIC
database.
(Nobody “owns” any integers… Everyone remains equally free to use the number 5 as much as they want.)
Owen
CI didn’t sue AFRINIC for nothing. AFRINIC, in violation of the actual text of their bylaws attempted
to revoke CI space and created major disruptions to a number of networks in the process. Had CI
not received the injunctions they got from the courts, likely the disruption would have been much
worse and caused some pretty wide-spread outages.
If a car is stolen and then used to provide ride sharing services,
when the repo man comes along, it will cause disruption to those ride
sharing services.
Rubens
AFRINIC legitimately issued those (closer to 6M) IP addresses to Cloud Innovation based on justifications submitted. AFRINIC then attempted, using claims that usage out of region is not permitted by the bylaws
(It is not prohibited by the bylaws, feel free to read them yourself), to reclaim those addresses.
This is not what happened. AFRINIC issued those IP addresses to Cloud Innovations based on fundamental misrepresentations by the applicant and internal fraudulent activity conducted by a single employee within AFRINIC.
Noe… You are conflating two completely different cases, sir.
CI submitted legitimate applications and their addresses were issued prior to Ernest’s activities.
You’re mixing Lu Heng up with Elad Cohen.
Owen
I’m not quite sure that we agree on the meaning of “legitimate application” when a HK based corporate entity is using and claiming permanent rights to AFRINIC IP space, primarily for ISP operations in east asia.
There have been multiple well documented instances of AFRINIC insiders with privileged access shoveling IP space out the back door by less than legitimate means. For a number of different suspicious recipients.
Undoubtedly this is part of what contributed to its board members and management fleeing the organization in the face of litigation and investigations.
The fact that these organizations that received IP space by less than honest means are now suing AFRINIC into financial oblivion honestly does not help the situation.