Dear colleagues,

I have read the proposal, presenting - in the "Arguments opposing the proposal"
paragraph - the speeding up of the equipment replacement cycle as the only
negative consequence of an increase in AS Numbers.

I would like to point out that we, and I am sure many other security organizations,
heavily use ASNs as one of the ways to classify networks, attach reputation to them,
group them in clusters.  We inspect all the ASNs coming alive and make some evaluations
that contribute to their reputation, such as "can their website be located?",
"can their geographical location be easily located?", "are they corporate data
available or hidden?", "do they use PTRs?", "who are they upstreams?", etc.

The fact is that there is a large fraction of new ASNs that get allocated to rather
shady entities, not to mention full cybercrime hosts.  It is fully clear that avoiding
this is impossible as cybercrime is part of the ecosystem we live in.  Yet, RIPE NCC is
at present the RIR with the highest rate of new allocations, and I admit that we are
watching with a little apprehension at the further increase of the rate that may
arise if this change is approved.

In short, the number of routed ASNs does not have an impact only on machines.
An ASN represents an administrative entity controlling the routing policy of a collection
of IP prefixes, and as such it constitutes a little associated analysis cost for
whoever needs to monitor the behavior of these entities for the good of the internet.

I humbly suggest that this point is somehow added among the "arguments opposing
the proposal".  Having said that, we will deal with whatever the outcome will be
and possibly expand our resources if needed.

Kind regards,

Natale M Bianchi
Spamhaus Project


On Tue, Jul 07, 2026 at 03:19:13PM +0200, Angela Dall'Ara wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> A new RIPE Policy Proposal, 2026-01 "Simplify assignment of first ASN"
> is now available for discussion.
>
> This proposal aims to remove the needs assessment for the first AS Number
> requested by holders of an IP address prefix assigned or allocated directly
> by the RIPE NCC.
>
>
> You can find the full proposal at:
> https://www.ripe.net/community/policies/proposals/2026-01
>
>
> As per the RIPE Policy Development Process (PDP), the purpose of the
> Discussion Phase is to discuss the proposal and provide feedback to the
> proposer.
>
> At the end of the Discussion Phase, the proposer, with the agreement of the
> WG Chairs, will decide how to proceed with the proposal.
>
> The PDP document can be found at:
> https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-781
>
> We encourage you to review this proposal and send your comments to
> address-policy-wg@ripe.net before 5 August 2026.
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Angela Dall'Ara
> Policy Officer
> RIPE NCC
>
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