[rpd] [Last Call] Draft Policy Proposal - Hierarchical Names for New AS-SETs (AFPUB-2026-ASN-001-DRAFT02)

[Nishal Goburdhan]

On 19 Jul 2026, at 8:39, Tshepo Masuku wrote:

[snip]

tshepo,

i'm not going to work through every point in your mail, because you have not addressed the simple request i made.  if you are objecting, then demonstrate:
- this complexity (or harm) you keep talking about;  and/or
- a viable alternative;

and my reason is simple - there is a bug that is being exploited.  we have real-world evidence of this.  we would like to see that patched, asap.

what your responses do not reflect, is that operators across the world *want* this patch!  we know this to be true, because, there is a policy for this, in every other RIR.  and yes, whilst other regions do not force afrinic policy, we are hearing from real network operators in africa, that they want this.  i know, i am an operator, and it would make my life better.  and there are other, verifiable, operators, in this region, that have said the same, in support of this policy already.

i'm going to re-state something i wrote earlier:  no single policy instrument, solves every problem simultaneously.  the fact that hierarchical naming does not also validate every prefix inside an AS-SET, does not mean it offers no value.  attribution alone, is a meaningful improvement, even in the absence of full content verification.

by your logic, RPKI should also have been opposed — because ROAs don't validate BGP path attributes!  that argument, if taken seriously, would paralyse every incremental improvement to internet infrastructure.  forever!

the internet was built, incrementally.
it gets better, incrementally.
that is not a bug.

—n.

ps.  as a matter of list etiquette, you should not include rpd-owner@ in your reply;  it is sufficient to simply address your mail to the mailing list.