In our latest episode, Raffaele Sommese of the University of Twente shares insights from him and his colleagues on Italy’s Piracy Shield and how rapid-response blocking works in practice. We get into the technical impact, how it can be measured, and the consequences for connectivity.

Raffaele is assistant professor at University of Twente’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. For more details on the research he and his colleagues carried out on this topic, check out their academic paper on the impact of Piracy Shield or read the summarised version on RIPE Labs: Live-Event Blocking at Scale: Effectiveness vs. Collateral Damage in Italy’s Piracy Shield.

00:20 - Piracy Shield on the AGCOM website

00:50 - Read more about cases where Cloudflare and Google were blocked by Piracy Shield. Since recording this episode, things have escalated, with Cloudflare recently having threatened to pull out of Italy after receiving fines issued by AGCOM.

05:10 - Some background on the law behind Piracy Shield

10:20 - Watch Raffaele's talk on this topic from RIPE 91 (Bucharest, October 2025)

16:40 - AGCOM website for checking blocked resources and an alternative page run by Infotech (an Italian ISP)

42:30 - A 2025 article on anti-piracy developments in Spain

46:50 - More on Piracy Shield's expansion to TV

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ICP-2 lays out the criteria for the recognition of new RIRs. But what about the rest of the lifecycle of the organisations that coordinate the allocation and public registration of unique IP numbers? In this episode, Andrei Robachevsky of the NRO NC talks about the ICP-2 review.

In November 2023, the NRO EC requested that the ASO AC "review and consider improvements to ICP-2". The NRO NC (in its role as ASO AC - see notes on organisations and acronyms below) thereby began a comprehensive review of the original document and put together a process for the creation of an updated ICP-2 through open consultation with the community. Having reached step seven in that process, the NRO NC is now receiving community feedback on version 2 of the draft RIR Governance Document (until 7 November 2025). The entire ICP-2 review process has been documented in detail in the ICP-2 section over on the NRO NC website.

ICP-2: 'Internet Coordination Policy 2: Criteria for Establishment of New Regional Internet Registries' - document published and accepted by the ICANN Board of Directors in 2001.

RIRs: The Regional Internet Registries; who coordinate the allocation and public registration of unique IP addresses and AS numbers for their service regions:

• RIPE NCC: Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre (est. 1992)
• APNIC: Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (est. 1993)
• ARIN: American Registry for Internet Numbers (est. 1997)
• LACNIC: Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (est. 2002)
• AFRINIC: African Network Information Centre (est. 2004)

ICANN (est. 1998): The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers; oversees the global allocation of domain names and unique Internet numbers; delegates these resources to the RIRs in its IANA function.

IANA: The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority; originally Jon Postel; now a function carried out by ICANN.

NRO: The Number Resource Organisation; coordinating body for the five RIRs.

NRO EC: The NRO Executive Council; executive body for the NRO; composed of five members, one from each RIR.

NRO NC: The NRO Number Council; fills the role of ASO AC for ICANN; composed of fifteen members, three from each RIR community.

ASO: The Address Supporting Organisation; advises the ICANN Board on global IP address policies.

ASO AC: The ASO Address Council; role within ICANN's ASO to ensure the proper implementation of global policy development process across the RIR regions; filled by the NRO NC.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Internet has long been fertile ground for innovative technologies to grow and openly compete. But having emerged out of these conditions, certain services and the companies that offer them have come to dominate and stifle the very diversity that made their existence possible. Our guest in the episode of the RIPE Labs podcast, Maria Farrell, talks about why we must - and how we can - rewild the Internet.

Show notes:

00:00 - Find out more about our excellent guest, Maria Farrell

02:26 - Maria at RIPE 90

05:48 - More about Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott

07:15 - Find out more about Robin Berjon

08:46 - We Need to Rewind the Internet by Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon

11:36 - Meredith Whittaker speaking at CCC

16:32 - Leslie Daigle's The Internet Invariants ...and Leslie at RIPE 90

20:10 - RFC 9518 'Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards'

21:30 - Hisham Ibrahim on RIPE Labs

28:55 - Cory Doctorow on competitive compatibility ("comcom")

37:45 - Interview with Jonathan Kanter on Big Tech, Antitrust Laws, and the Future of AI

43:20 - On Ireland's relationship with U.S. tech

51:45 - Anna Wilson at RIPE 90 It's ok to be smaller: how to not get overwhelmed

52:10 - Bert Hubert on European cloud

52:18 - Meredith Whittaker on the end of big tech

01:00:48: - Bert Hubert on open source alternatives to big tech services

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.