Alun Davies
Based in Amsterdam
52
Articles
2023
Likes on articles
Based in Amsterdam
Hailing from a research background in philosophy, linguistics and computer science, I came to the RIPE NCC back in 2016 and took on the role of RIPE Labs Editor in 2020.
operational
internet number resources
dns
routing
security
rpki
ipv6
measurements
atlas
ripestat
tools
geolocation
ris
statistics
governance
policy
privacy
country
sustainability
research
community
diversity
events
hackathons
nogs
ripe
podcast
production
prototype
bgp
regulations
outages
internet infrastructure
open source
Looking Inside Outages with RIPE Atlas
• 7 min read
RIPE Atlas probes actively measure Internet connectivity through a variety of measurement types. In this article, we take a closer look at what probes can tell us about outages.
Our First Glance at the Belarus Outages
• 6 min read
On 9 August, Belarus experienced country-wide Internet outages. Here's a first glance at what our tools and datasets have to tell us about the scale of these outages and their impact.
RIPE Atlas Software Probes
• 4 min read
RIPE Atlas probes are now available as software, offering future hosts a new way to help build the RIPE Atlas network. While not a replacement for their hardware counterparts, software probes will improve coverage by bringing RIPE Atlas to new and previously hard-to-reach places.
RIPE NCC Country Report: Russia
• 2 min read
RIPE NCC Day Moscow takes place on 9 April. In conjunction with the event, which has been organised to allow network engineers and other technical staff to share their knowledge and experiences, we’d like to share with you the second in our new series of country reports.
New RIPE Atlas Version 4 Probes
• 4 min read
The long wait for the new RIPE Atlas probes is over. Here's a quick look at the new devices and the work that went in to getting distribution back on track.
Announcing RIPE Atlas VM Anchors
• 4 min read
After a successful pilot project and a period spent gathering feedback from the community, RIPE Atlas Virtual Machine (VM) anchors are a go. Anyone out there who wishes to host a virtual RIPE Atlas anchor can do so starting today. Here's everything you need to know to get started.
2018 Campaign to Sponsor 10 RIPE Atlas Anchors
• 3 min read
Last year, the RIPE NCC ran a campaign to sponsor a batch of RIPE Atlas anchors. The campaign was well received by the community and helped us deploy anchors in a variety of new locations. So, this year, we're doing it again.
RIPE Atlas Probes: Delays in Distribution
• 3 min read
The good news: RIPE Atlas is growing both in terms of geographical diversity and ASN coverage. What's more, RIPE Atlas is evolving, with a new generation of probe hardware having already passed the test phase and a pilot programme underway to assess the viability of VM anchors. The not so good news…
I'm sorry to see that the tone of the article has infuriated some of our readers. Speaking for RIPE Labs, our only goal is to give people in the community a space where they can express views on community-relevant topics. That's important to us - but we do understand that there will sometimes be disagreement and debate over the views expressed. We would of course be equally happy to publish an article making a positive case for the use of personal ASNs.
“great podcast! is there a way to get a subtitles?”
Thanks Maxim! And good suggestion - we have been looking into ways to do this. Watch this space!
“Hi, first Link on this page (https://atlas.ripe.net/docs/software-probe/) is broken.”
Thanks Jan - that's due to the recent update of the RIPE Atlas documentation. Fixed now!
“Hi. Could you please share sample articles so that we get better idea on what is the expectation of one”
Hi Sankalp - no problem. All the articles that have been submitted so far can be viewed on the main competition page: https://labs.ripe.net/competitions/the-ripe-labs-article-competition/
“Has RIPE considered removing the routing information for Russian IP space - cutting Russia off from the internet at large?”
Hi Alexis - here's a link to a statement the RIPE NCC Executive Board published yesterday: https://www.ripe.net/publications/news/announcements/ripe-ncc-executive-board-resolution-on-provision-of-critical-services
Interested readers might want to take a look at the follow-up discussion currently taking place on the RIPE NCC Services Group Mailing List: https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/ncc-services-wg/2021-May/thread.html
“When I and my journalistic colleague, Jan Vermeulen of MyBroaddband.co.za began our investigations into this colossal and truly epic malfeasance and theft of valuable IPv4 resources in mid 2019, the notion of either of us becoming famous or of receiving any credit for unraveling and publicly documenting this gigantic scandal was not what motivated us, nor has it been, since the beginning. Rather, we merely wished to right some wrongs and return to the people of Africa some IP resources critically needed for the ongoing development of the Internet in Africa. Nonetheless, it would have been, I think, at least minimally respectful if either AFRINIC or (now) RIPE had taken a moment to at least mention our names and our very evident, abundant, and key contributions towards exposing this whole huge mess. Neither organization, it seems, has thus far elected to do so publicly. Such is the reward, or lack thereof, of a job well done.”
Sorry for the oversight. I've updated the article with some additional information and a link so readers can find out more about how the news emerged.
“The link to the full AFRINIC whois audit report is not working.”
Thanks Wessel! Should be working for everyone now.
“small (almost rhetorical but not really) question. do you assume these outages were created manually on request of state regulator?”
As we say, our purpose here is really to see what our data has to tell us about the scale and impact of the outages. Nothing in the data we've been looking at determines what caused the outages.
“Any info about traffic packet loss from probes?”
Good question. Arriving at a proper answer to this would require looking at all measurements from all probes for the past four days to find out if any observed packet losses is related to the outage or to other issues in the path to the destination. From a first peek at one probe that disconnected for two days and came back, it seems that (some/all?) IPv4 pings did make it through all the time. IPv6 on the other hand had 100% packet loss. See: https://atlas.ripe.net/probes/25114/#tab-builtins
Showing 24 comment(s)