The imminent elections for executive council members at the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) - the non-profit organization that distributes and manages IP addresses and AS numbers in 56 nations - has sparked calls for a rapid rewrite of the organization's bylaws to ensure no single entity can dominate its governance.

APNIC last week closed nominations for executive council (EC) members, after 13 nominations were received. That list will be confirmed on February 15, the nominees are confirmed as able and willing to serve on the APNIC EC.

So far, so democratic.

But Karl Klopperberg, a veteran telecoms engineer from Australia, has issued a call to APNIC members. His hope is that they will use processes that allow APNIC to stage an extraordinary meeting at which the organization's bylaws are changed so that only one representative of a company or other entity can nominate for and be elected to the EC.

Klopperberg's rationale is that several candidates for the election are affiliated with the Number Resource Society - a Morocco-based organization that has in the past nominated candidates to the board of African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC), the regional internet registry for Africa.

NRS has endorsed several candidates for the APNIC election and advanced a reform platform that criticizes APNIC's governance on the grounds it is "a form of dictatorship" and calls for members to "seize control."

NRS also calls for "a free market where businesses are free to run unhindered" and for APNIC to relocate from Australia to Singapore.

One of the NRS-endorsed candidates is Lu Heng - a Hong-Kong based entrepreneur who is CEO of an organization named LARUS, and linked to an organization called Cloud Innovation that is embroiled in multiple legal actions against AFRINIC.

AFRINIC alleges [PDF] that Cloud Innovation acquired over six million IP addresses from it, but broke its contract by reselling some to entities outside Africa.

In 2021, an individual named Lu Heng was accused by the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) as having sought to purchase IPv4 addresses from it for use allegedly outside the region the registry administers.

As IPv4 addresses are scarce, and are allocated to regional registries for use within the areas they administer, third party sales of addresses elsewhere are frowned upon.

ARIN therefore characterized Lu Heng's activities as having the potential for "significant impact to the overall stability of the Internet number registry system."

The Register understands that the call to reform APNIC's bylaws is therefore motivated by a desire to avoid a repeat of the controversy and legal mess AFRINIC has experienced.

The NRS's candidates, meanwhile, appear to be campaigning hard. The nominee profile for one of its candidates, Larissa Santos, lists a code of conduct violation for unsolicited "electioneering using information which was highly unlikely to be obtained from any source other than the APNIC Member list or Whois data." The Register has encountered reports of APNIC members receiving unsolicited phone calls from NRS-aligned candidates.

Klopperberg told The Register he hopes that the mechanisms allowing an extraordinary meeting to be called will result in delays to the APNIC EC election.

The Register has requested an interview with Lu Heng, and APNIC director-general Paul Wilson. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2023/02/15/apnic_election_controversy/