Hi Alexander, This was a closed meeting for law enforcement officials, arranged through the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation, who made the outreach to appropriate agencies. The participants were not required to share their name or affiliation in a way that would be publicly available, and the RIPE NCC could not be publish that information without those participants’ prior permission. As I noted in the earlier email, we are happy to share the agenda and all presentations delivered by the RIPE NCC at this event. This comprehensively covers the content and message delivered by the RIPE NCC staff during the discussion. I’d also direct anyone with an interest in this engagement to an article that we published on RIPE Labs last August that went more deeply into the reasons and strategy behind the RIPE NCC’s LEA engagement: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/richard_leaning/bringing-law-enforcement-into-... Best regards, Chris

On 16 Feb 2018, at 20:55, Alexander Isavnin <isavnin@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Chris!

Could we ask for participants list from Russian LEAs?

We have right to know, who will never ask about owner of "192.168.0.1" address since this meeting in Russia. :)

Due to Russian police regulations, police officers (or any other equvalent investigating LEA officer) could not stay anonymous, so don't shy to reveal their names.

Kind regards, Alexander Isavnin

Sent via RIPE Forum -- https://www.ripe.net/participate/mail/forum

Alexander Holding meetings with LEA is a good idea in order to help them understand what we all do as well as to understand their concerns. Demanding that they register etc., would make such meetings problematic. So I disagree with you fundamentally. Regards Michele -- Mr Michele Neylon Blacknight Solutions Hosting, Colocation & Domains https://www.blacknight.com/ http://blacknight.blog/ Intl. +353 (0) 59 9183072 Direct Dial: +353 (0)59 9183090 Personal blog: https://michele.blog/ Some thoughts: https://ceo.hosting/ ------------------------------- Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd, Unit 12A,Barrowside Business Park,Sleaty Road,Graiguecullen,Carlow,R93 X265,Ireland Company No.: 370845 On 19/02/2018, 15:08, "cooperation-wg on behalf of Alexander Isavnin" <cooperation-wg-bounces@ripe.net on behalf of isavnin@gmail.com> wrote: Chris! Seems i'v mistaken, and Openness and Transparency are no longer essencial values for RIPE NCC. No gap could be briged if LEAs stays anonymous. Breaking openness and transparency for comfort of some doubtful officers - is really bad idea. Why i ask for LEA deanonymisation? Read ECHR cases against Russia on tortures (and other abuses) by all kind of LEAs. It would be really pity, if later appears, that RIPE NCC have met some of such abusers. Regards, Alexander P.S. As we say in Internet: "pics, or never happened" P.P.S. Also, "Once cop always cop", even if it tries to infiltrate into engeneering world. As we seen, successfully protecting interests of cops, rather than interests of Community. Sent via RIPE Forum -- https://www.ripe.net/participate/mail/forum

On 27 Mar 2018, at 20:43, Alexander Isavnin <isavnin@gmail.com> wrote:

P. S. Objections for transpatency of RIPE NCC LEA meetings are usially recieved from former police officers. Hmmm, what are they trying to hide?

Alexander, I don't understand your complaint or why it's directed at the NCC. If you want transparency, openness and so on from Russian law enforcement, that's something to discuss with the Russian authorities. Good luck with that. :-) It's perfectly reasonable for the NCC to have confidential meetings with people and organisations for all sorts of things: recruitment, RFP responses, negotiations with suppliers, professional advice from lawyers and beancounters, etc, etc. This Russian workshop is just another example. IMO if the NCC has some workshop with the Russian cops and the cops say "OK, but we want this to be confidential", it's fine to go ahead on that basis. I expect the NCC has closed meetings with law enforcement across the service region: active criminal investigations, forensics for botnet herders. DDoS mitigation, etc, etc. If anything sinister emerged at this workshop, we can (or should) trust the NCC staff to do The Right Thing.

On 28 Mar 2018, at 09:58, Shane Kerr <shane@time-travellers.org> wrote:

But the Internet culture has always been transparent, and we should strive always for maximum openness and transparency, even if this makes certain types of interactions impossible.

I'm sorry Shane but I strongly disagree. What you seem to be advocating is unwise and possibly dangerous. Of course everyone here wants maximum openness and transparency. Or should do. However there are parts of our community, like law enforcement or those responsible for critical national infrastructure, which may find that difficult or uncomfortable. Or even impossible. So we have to somehow accommodate that, work with these groups and encourage them to become more open when interacting with the broader interweb community. If the NCC said to govenments or law enforcement "you won't play by our rules - get lost", that would not just be disappointing. It would not have a happy ending.

It is like they need us, not vice versa, right? On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 11:56:13AM +0000, Michele Neylon - Blacknight wrote:

+1 Jim

Open and transparent is what we'd all like, but if the choice is between zero interaction with LEA and some interaction under specific conditions I know which option I want.

I agree Jim. At the risk of sounding naive, while it is of course important to be critical, advocate for transparency, and take a stand when needed, alienating LEAs who have legitatent challenges and concerns won't do us any good. Of course, that may be slightly off-topic given the initial response by Alexander, and I do understand his criticism. Best, -Michael On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 12:07 PM, Jim Reid <jim@rfc1035.com> wrote:

...

On 29 Mar 2018, at 10:45, Alex Smirnoff <ark@eltex.net> wrote:

It is like they need us, not vice versa, right?

First, let’s stop this “us” and “them” attitude. It’s wrong and unhelpful.

Law enforcement, regulators and so on are members of the RIPE community. We have to work with these sectors, just like we engage with IXPs, ISPs, privacy activists and so on.

An adversarial relationship with the authorities will not be in the best interests of anyone. That doesn’t mean “we” must always agree with “them”. It does mean at a minimum that there are channels for discussion and mutual understanding and that these work well. It looks to me that the recent workshop was a welcome step in that direction.

And FWIW we need “them” just as much as they need “us”. We’re all passengers on the same Internet bus and we have a common interest in making sure the wheels don’t come off.

On 29 Mar 2018, at 17:06, Gordon Lennox <gordon.lennox.13@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Law enforcement, regulators and so on are members of the RIPE community.

So they should come to RIPE meetings?

Of course. Assuming they see the value in that, just like anyone else who might show up.

NCC has been good in reaching out to various communities. But I would have hoped the result would have been that these communities would have seen the benefit in then coming to participate in RIPE meetings.

Law enforcement and government officials have been to RIPE meetings in the past. I even drank beer (and single malt) with some of them. Whether they see benefit from continuing participation or not depends on a lot of unknowns: content, budget, other commitments/priorities. [You’ll appreciate some of these issues Gordon from your time at the Commisssion and the management hoops you had to jump through to attend a RIPE meeting.] Or perhaps Law enforcement and government officials get enough from these workshop type things and roundtables that a full RIPE meeting doesn’t matter so much.

Hi all, I am following this topic for a while now, but did not have the chance to write down something, finally got the chance. As one of the organizers for SHA2017, I have been through this whole debate, and it kept popping up ever since OHM2013. There is this whole idea of "us" vs "them", and trust me, it goes both ways. At SHA2017 we (the foundation) decided that it was not feasible to have organisations as sponsors with known links to the Dutch Ministry of Justice. This had nothing to do with the sponsor, but with their client, at that time it was "Ivo Opstelten", who basically rattled the cage for most of our visitors. He was the cause of a lot of people throwing tantrums and leaving, even caused board members to step down due to their affiliation with the Ministry. Thanks to sponsors like RIPE we could make the event awesome. I have to say that education is something that needs to be done, and if the client pays someone from RIPE to give a workshop, so be it. You like a list of all 3500+ participants that watched Becha on our event, based on "transparency"? Would be a long list, and I am pretty sure that I am legally not even allowed. If RIPE starts to exclude certain teams based on their profession, then you will be sure that they will find someone else to get educated by, and trust me, they are not always the "good" guys. Education is key, no matter your background. Greetings, Julius ter Pelkwijk Secretary IFCAT On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 6:07 PM Gordon Lennox <gordon.lennox.13@gmail.com> wrote:

On 29 Mar 2018, at 12:07, Jim Reid <jim@rfc1035.com> wrote:

Law enforcement, regulators and so on are members of the RIPE community.

So they should come to RIPE meetings?

NCC has been good in reaching out to various communities. But I would have hoped the result would have been that these communities would have seen the benefit in then coming to participate in RIPE meetings. There ought to be no barrier. They just need to pay and turn up like everybody else. Unlike academics, for example, these organisations have the funds.

We have to work with these sectors, just like we engage with IXPs, ISPs, privacy activists and so on.

We had a range of participants in IETF 101 - from NSA and NIST to EuroPol and various European governments (albeit sometimes discretely in the form of experts and consultants) to human rights folk. I think this is good and what we should aspire to: wider participation, a healthy level of transparency.

Gordon

Hi Shane, all, I’m reiterating what I said at the beginning of this thread, but I would like to respond to the characterisation of this event as a "secret meeting”. The RIPE NCC understands the importance that our membership and community place on transparency. Our efforts in relation to this particular event included: - Notifying the community that the engagement had taken place (via this list) - Providing the meeting agenda - Providing links to the material presented by RIPE NCC staff at the event The latter two are available here: https://www.ripe.net/participate/meetings/lea-meetings/ripe-ncc-lea-meeting-... This information is provided specifically so that our membership and community can understand the reason for the meeting, the topics under discussion and the position conveyed by the RIPE NCC in those discussions. In this case, the event was organised in cooperation with the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation (a practical outcome of the agreement signed between the Ministry and the RIPE NCC in 2017). The Ministry invited representatives of a number of Russian law enforcement agencies, but the RIPE NCC did not collect names of the participants. Best regards, Chris —— Chris Buckridge External Relations Manager RIPE NCC

On 28 Mar 2018, at 10:58, Shane Kerr <shane@time-travellers.org> wrote:

Michele,

[ Hm... I had this marked as "sent on 2018-02-21" on my mailbox, but I don't see it on the mailing list archives. Re-sending a month later. ]

I was at a gathering where a member of the Dutch government explained the negotiations with the US regarding TTIP(*). Basically the US insisted that all negotiations be done in secret. The Dutch representatives felt like they had no choice, so agreed to this condition. The feeling of most of the room, including myself, was that the Dutch government should have said that it was impossible for us to conduct such non-transparent discussions and walked away.

That is my feeling here too with the RIPE NCC and LEA, which is to say that I basically agree with Alexander.

I realize that LEA officials may not have freedom to attend meetings openly for many reasons. That is a shame and I do not blame them or think that they necessarily have bad motives. Legal restrictions may exist, or simply perception problems, and these can be very real.

But the Internet culture has always been transparent, and we should strive always for maximum openness and transparency, even if this makes certain types of interactions impossible.

It may also be that LEA culture and governmental culture in general reflexively tries to do things in secret - or at least private - that do not need to be. Perhaps the RIPE community pushing a bit may move things in the right direction.

In terms of oversight and accountability, such secret meetings are also problematic for the RIPE NCC members. How can a member evaluate if their interests are being represented if they cannot even know who is being talked to? Alexander's concerns about discussions with bad actors seem justified to me.

Cheers,

-- Shane

(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership

Michele Neylon - Blacknight:

...

Holding meetings with LEA is a good idea in order to help them understand what we all do as well as to understand their concerns.

Demanding that they register etc., would make such meetings problematic.

So I disagree with you fundamentally.

Regards

Michele

-- Mr Michele Neylon Blacknight Solutions Hosting, Colocation & Domains https://www.blacknight.com/ http://blacknight.blog/ Intl. +353 (0) 59 9183072 Direct Dial: +353 (0)59 9183090 Personal blog: https://michele.blog/ Some thoughts: https://ceo.hosting/ ------------------------------- Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd, Unit 12A,Barrowside Business Park,Sleaty Road,Graiguecullen,Carlow,R93 X265,Ireland Company No.: 370845 On 19/02/2018, 15:08, "cooperation-wg on behalf of Alexander Isavnin" <cooperation-wg-bounces@ripe.net on behalf of isavnin@gmail.com> wrote:

Chris!

Seems i'v mistaken, and Openness and Transparency are no longer essencial values for RIPE NCC.

No gap could be briged if LEAs stays anonymous. Breaking openness and transparency for comfort of some doubtful officers - is really bad idea.

Why i ask for LEA deanonymisation? Read ECHR cases against Russia on tortures (and other abuses) by all kind of LEAs. It would be really pity, if later appears, that RIPE NCC have met some of such abusers.

Regards, Alexander

P.S. As we say in Internet: "pics, or never happened" P.P.S. Also, "Once cop always cop", even if it tries to infiltrate into engeneering world. As we seen, successfully protecting interests of cops, rather than interests of Community.

Sent via RIPE Forum -- https://www.ripe.net/participate/mail/forum