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

[Nonjabulo Sphilile]

Dear PDWG,

Kindly allow me to raise a technical concern on my side that further
supports my objection to the proposed policy.

The proposal controls the name of a newly created AS-SET, but not the
AS-SET names referenced inside it. RPSL allows the members: attribute of an
AS-SET to contain other AS-SET names. Those referenced sets are then
included when the object is expanded, with nested inclusion operating
recursively.

A new object such as:

AS65000:AS-CUSTOMERS

could therefore still contain:

members: AS-EXAMPLE

If AS-EXAMPLE exists with different contents in multiple IRR sources, the
top-level object may be hierarchical while its dependency chain remains
ambiguous. The same filter-generation problem can therefore reappear during
recursive expansion.

This is not the earlier argument about whether individual members are
factually correct. It is a narrower issue of resolution integrity: the
proposal secures the first object name but does not secure every referenced
name that tooling must resolve.

The Impact Assessment expressly places resolver behaviour outside scope,
yet the operational justification depends on the results produced by
resolvers and filter-generation tools. That gap needs to be addressed.

Before adoption, the proposal should clarify whether newly created
hierarchical AS-SETs may reference grandfathered flat AS-SETs. If they may,
the policy should define how ambiguity is detected and handled throughout
the dependency chain. If they may not, the operational impact and migration
requirements should be assessed and documented.

A creation-time naming restriction should not be credited with protecting
filter generation until the complete expansion path has been tested.

For this reason, I object to the proposal as presently written.

Regards,
Nonjabulo
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/rpd/attachments/20260727/c9931eb2/attachment.html>