Implementing Decentralized RPKI with Blockchain Technology

Hi there,

Currently, due to political factors, some countries are not particularly proactive in deploying RPKI. Imagine if the RIR of a region were forced to revoke all IP resources of a particular country from RPKI, effectively isolating that country from the global internet.

To address this, one approach is for autonomous networks within a region to establish two trusted RPKI CA servers: one from the major RIRs and another locally managed. The locally managed CA would take precedence, allowing autonomous networks to submit their IP resources to the RPKI server of their peers (and potentially backed by a national mandate to trust this CA). This setup could prevent a scenario where an entire country’s IP resources are revoked, leading to all IPs being marked as invalid.

Another concept is to use blockchain technology. While cryptocurrencies use computational power to verify ownership, BGP could use peer count. If an IP resource is marked as valid by a majority of high-influence networks (with many peers), it could be trusted by the entire internet.

Could this approach work? Perhaps there’s existing research on similar methods?

   Could this approach work? Perhaps there’s existing research on similar
   methods?

Brandon, I blockchain and BGP were discussed on NANOG some years ago, back
when the deployment of RPKI was brought up. Short answer - it won't solve jack
and will use tons of computation power.

I'm not really going to go into details, but essentially adding a band-aid
instead of adopting RPKI and addressing the issues with RIR is not the best
course of action.

Imagine decentralizing x.509.