On 02/06/11 00:01, Martin Millnert wrote:
Increased censorship is a clear and present danger. It's our duty to confront this danger wherever we can.
I agree, but don't forget that trust goes both ways. In that sense it is essential to note that the RIR's registrants are not isolated to one particular jurisdiction. Your worry would be valid for any national IP resource registry, but not for any of today's regional registries. Several countries already operate a centrally managed list of prefixes which all ISP's who operate within the country are required to block (in practise peer with a BGP-box and null-route any pfx it announces). Yet more governments are considering/planning such activities. Lawyers and politicians involved with such schemes may initially be excited by the idea of using centralised/international registers, but quickly realise that an attempt to corner the operator of a central registry may destroy its authority outside the jurisdiction within which the particular registry operates. Not only would it undermine their filtering/censoring efforts, but it would also ruin the technical/operational value of the registry's certificates. The big threat to freedom of speech through censorship would come via global or regional treaties in which case all bets are off. The existence of a central registry might simplify censoring efforts initially, while the absence of such is no long term guarantee against it. //per