[NLNOG] Use of NLNOG RING nodes on HE's supertraceroute tool

[Teun Vink]

Hi everyone,

In the last couple of days, NLNOG RING admins and the NLNOG board have 
received a number of questions about the new Hurricane Electric 
supertraceroute tool (hosted on bgp.he.net) using NLNOG RING nodes as a 
datasource.

To our disappointment, Hurricane Electric has not asked permission for 
or even announced the use of the NLNOG RING for this purpose before 
releasing the tool.

A number of RING node owners have indicated that they're not happy with 
their node being publicly accessible for this purpose, on a website 
hosted by a third party. This conflicts with the philosophy that the 
RING is built on mutual trust and managed as a community.

As NLNOG Board, we understand these concerns and have requested 
Hurricane Electric to stop using NLNOG RING nodes this way. In addition, 
the SSH keys identified as used for this purpose will be disabled by 
NLNOG RING admins.

In general, NLNOG encourages people to use the NLNOG RING to provide 
services for the good of the internet and especially RING owners. The 
way this was done by Hurricane Electric violated the trust on which the 
RING is built and the community spirit. We will try to see if there's a 
way we can make an arrangement with Hurricane Electric to enable use of 
RING nodes in a way that meets expectations of RING node owners, for 
example by using an opt-in model.

Please don't hesistate to contact the board or the RING admin team if 
you have any questions on this subject.

On behalf of the NLNOG Board,
Teun Vink