RIPE NCC Services Working Group Minutes RIPE 91
Wednesday, 22 October 2025, 14:00–15:30 (UTC+03:00)
Chairs: Rob Evans, Stefan Wahl, János Zsakó
Scribe: Anastasiya Pak
Status: Draft
The recordings of the session are available at:
https://ripe91.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/sessions/33/
The stenography transcripts are available at:
https://ripe91.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/sessions/33/transcript/
1. Welcome, Acknowledgements, Agenda Bashing
The presentation is available at:
https://ripe91.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/sessions/33/CB9A8M/
The co-chairs opened the meeting, thanked the stenographer, scribe and chat monitor, and reviewed the agenda. The WG confirmed the re-selection of Rob Evans as co-chair: János Zsakó noted that the call for volunteers had not produced alternatives, that Rob had volunteered to continue and received support on the list, and that no objections were raised in the room; applause followed. Rob encouraged broader participation and invited future candidates to step forward for chair roles.
The chairs also noted that the RIPE 90 minutes were approved with no comments when circulated on the list.
2. Draft Activity Plan and Budget 2026
Hans Petter Holen, RIPE NCC Managing Director and CEO
The presentation is available at:
https://ripe91.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/sessions/33/ENAR8C/
Hans Petter Holen presented the draft Activity Plan and Budget for 2026, situating it at the close of the 2022–2026 strategy period. He emphasised completion of outstanding commitments, a break-even budget of EUR 41.1M, and planning assumptions around ~20,000 contributing LIRs. He highlighted infrastructure modernisation for resilience “beyond national borders” and reiterated that while the number of LIRs has declined, the number of RIPE NCC members remains stable. A graphical breakdown in the plan shows the bulk of income from member service fees, with meeting income far below event costs; expenditure lines include community engagement, the registry, information services, and organisational sustainability.
Gert Doering, SpaceNet AG, noted the community’s long-standing expectation that IPv6 capability is a default, suggesting that this priority had become less explicit in recent text. In response, Hans Petter clarified that since he became Managing Director, the IPv6-by-default policy has been written into procurement and internal processes. He gave concrete examples: when the GM voting system (a third-party product) lacked IPv6, the NCC worked with the vendor to enable IPv6 on the frontend/CDN; by contrast, several major vulnerability management vendors still showed little interest in IPv6 support. He asked whether the community could help by collectively signalling IPv6 requirements to key vendors. Doering acknowledged the clarification and said he mainly wanted the IPv6 expectation on record in the minutes.
Hans Petter added that procurement sometimes requires balancing completeness of functionality and IPv6 support; he asked operators to share “top four or five” tools where IPv6 is lacking so the NCC and community could coordinate vendor pressure.
3. Panel: AI and the RIPE NCC
Eleonora Pedridou, Gabor de Wit, Antony Gollan, Robert Kisteleki (RIPE NCC) Moderator: János Zsakó
The recording is available at:
https://ripe91.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/sessions/33/P8BNJX/
The panellists explored how artificial intelligence may – or may not – start to impact the RIPE NCC’s work. János Zsakó introduced an interactive format using Kahoot to gauge sentiment before and after the discussion: “Is AI the future of RIPE NCC services?”, benefits and threats, and “anything we missed.” Early panel remarks explored security threats (e.g., more convincing phishing, deepfakes), operational dependence on AI, hallucinations, loss of competence, and environmental impact, with multiple panellists cautioning that services must remain trustworthy without AI availability and that authoritative outputs cannot rely on probabilistic systems.
Tom Hill, BT, raised a question about liability, and who is responsible when AI makes a mistake. Antony Gollan answered for the Communications team that humans remain accountable for outputs; internal checks and sign-off processes do not change because a tool was used. The moderator confirmed that the concern was noted even if the answer did not change the questioner’s view. This exchange set a tone that AI augments but does not shift organisational responsibility for RIPE NCC communications and services.
Brian Nisbet, HEAnet, challenged the framing of the Kahoot question, arguing it was too binary and risked producing low-value data. He warned against “brain-rot” where organisations insert chatbots into human interactions and criticised industry norms around LLM training data. János replied that the goal was to gauge sentiment, not predict the future; Rob Evans added that the exercise resembled an old-style debate where the aim is to see whether minds change. Eleonora Pedridou noted that a more nuanced question would have measured the degree of integration the community thinks appropriate, suggesting tool limitations constrained the wording.
Guillaume Leclanche, OVHcloud, argued that LLMs are statistical approximations, whereas many NCC services require precise, authoritative results; AI might assist in development but should not be the source of authority. In the panel’s closing reflections, Eleonora and others again stressed the environmental costs of inference workloads, and Robert Kisteleki and Gabor de Wit emphasised avoiding over-reliance and competence loss while ensuring fallback operation without AI. The moderator’s take-away was that the room was more aware of AI risks and that the community values human interaction with RIPE NCC staff, while also recognising limited, responsible uses in appropriate areas.
4. RIPE NCC Strategy 2027–2031
Hans Petter Holen, RIPE NCC Managing Director and CEO
The presentation is available at:
https://ripe91.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/sessions/33/J77JY7/
Returning to the stage, Hans Petter previewed four strategic anchors and associated focus areas under development: uniqueness and trust around Internet number resources; responsible stewardship focused on security, IPv6 deployment, routing security and interconnection; being a source of authoritative data and insight; and community partnership and good governance, including renewing and diversifying participation. He invited attendees to the Strategy BoF for deeper input and pointed to a survey collecting feedback.
Mick O’Donovan, HEAnet CLG, expressed concern at indications that some respondents wanted less investment in RIPE NCC’s training and certification, stating that both had been valuable and remain critical for bringing new engineers into the community, particularly for vendor-agnostic topics like BGP and IPv6 security. Hans Petter thanked him and responded that preliminary survey feedback showed more nuance, and that detailed results would be discussed at the BoF.
5. AOB, Open Mic
There was no other business to discuss. Rob thanked attendees and closed the session