[Community-Discuss] Call for Comments on the AFRINIC Mailing Lists Terms of Use

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <6A2D84B5-854F-42EA-BEA5-074B72782119 at afrinic.net>, 
AFRINIC Communication <comms at afrinic.net> wrote:


>Following complaints received from several community members on the

>virulence of exchanges on AFRINIC mailing lists and the growing number

>of one-off posts from incognito aliases that the community dubbed as

>"Internet trolls"...


Please note that a "troll" and what is usually refered to as a "sock
puppet" are two different things.

I cannot speak to the issue of "trolls" per se, but I would just like
to mention some historical RIPE WHOIS information which was sent to me
recently and which seems to suggests that a person who recently posted
some really quite inflamitory posts to this list, soliciting for people
and/or companies that might want to sue AFRINIC, may not have been quite
what he seemed:

https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/community-discuss/2020-December/003862.html

https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/community-discuss/2021-January/003868.html

A simple Google search for a "Ron Robario" turns up nothing at all,
suggesting that this identity may have been artificially manufactured,
rather than being one that belongs to an actual human being with an
actual life history.

It has been brought to my attention that this same mystery person, who
seems to be non-existant as far as a simple Google search is concerned,
may actually be an employee or a sock puppet of Deepak Mehta's Fiber Grid.

Here is a purported relevant historical RIPE WHOIS record dating from the
2012-2013 time frame:

person:          Ron Robario
address:         Kalmar SE
phone:           +46700905277
nic-hdl:         RON24-RIPE
mnt-by:          mnt-fibergrid
changed:         info at fibergrid.net 20120901
source:          RIPE

Note that since the time (2012-2013) during which the above record was present
in the RIPE WHOIS data base, most or all of the related RIPE WHOIS records
have been disappeared from the RIPE data base.  For example records for the
RON24-RIPE handle and for the MNT-FIBERGRID handle, together with any and all
of the other records whose mnt-by was set to MNT-FIBERGRID have been swept
clean out of the RIPE WHOIS data base.

Perhaps the mysterious Mr. Robario would like to explain all this, and most
specifically his connection(s) to Mr. Mehta's Fiber Grid, Inc. (Seychelles)
as well as the 1+ million IPv4 addresses that Mr. Mehta somehow brilliantly
finagled out of AFRINIC (and which AFRINIC has not yet reclaimed) to wit:

165.231.0.0/16
196.48.0.0/16
196.56.0.0/16
196.57.0.0/16
196.58.0.0/16
196.59.0.0/16
196.196.0.0/16
196.197.0.0/16
196.198.0.0/16
196.199.0.0/16
196.240.0.0/15
196.242.0.0/15
196.244.0.0/16
196.245.0.0/16
196.247.0.0/16

The above blocks, all assigned to ORG-FGI1-AFRINIC, comprise some 1,114,112
individual IPv4 addresses, none of which, at my last check, were being routed
anywhere near the AFRINIC region.

Current open market value of all of the above is estimated at around $27.2
million USD, based on a current market price of $1.6 million per /16 block.


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  For those of you who may not already be aware, the email address
ronrobarionet at protonmail.com is serviced by a company in Switzerland,
Protonmail, that specializes in providing anonymous and untracable email
accounts.