Aftab Siddiqui made APNIC anchor new AS-SET names to an ASN

Aftab Siddiqui Put an Owner's ASN in the AS-SET Name

Why it matters

A loose AS-SET name can travel from a registry database into somebody else's BGP filter. Aftab Siddiqui's prop-151 made APNIC tie new names to an ASN whose maintainer can authorize them. The old free-floating names were left for their holders to clean up.

Sofia Ren2 November 2026Reading Time 2 minLast update: 2 November 2026

Aftab Siddiqui; likeness grounded in the named APNIC 54 nominee photograph. The branching network background is imagined.

Summary

Aftab Siddiqui's prop-151 barred new non-hierarchical AS-SET objects in APNIC Whois and recommended that holders of existing ones move to hierarchical names. APNIC's impact assessment tied creation of the new name to the maintainer of the ASN inside it.
Current APNIC policy permits new hierarchical AS-SETs only. Its object guide says some old non-hierarchical sets still remain; APNIC says implementation work is complete.

The filter trusts a name before it trusts a route

An AS-SET groups autonomous systems. Operators can use its membership to build peering filters, so a database name can become a live operational input. APNIC's Section 10.7 describes the danger in blunt terms: a non-hierarchical name could be created without suitable authorization, and a wrong or empty membership could leave an automated BGP prefix filter empty. The policy describes a possible failure mechanism, not a documented outage.

Siddiqui's answer was to put an ASN into the name. A form such as AS1:AS-CUSTOMERS shows whose number anchors the hierarchy. APNIC's assessment of prop-151 says only the maintainer of the ASN used in that object should create the hierarchical AS-SET. This makes a collision with the same unqualified label in another routing registry harder to pass off as ownership.

The proposal history records version 1 on 20 January 2023, consensus at APNIC 55 on 2 March, Executive Council endorsement on 21 April, and publication in APNIC-127-v013 on 20 July. The enacted policy permits APNIC account holders to create hierarchical sets, requires the name components to follow its hierarchy rules, and forbids making a non-hierarchical set the parent of a new hierarchical one. APNIC's product review says the implementation is complete.

This was a door policy, not a mass deletion. The AS-SET guide explicitly says some old non-hierarchical objects remain. Siddiqui proposed notifying their holders and recommending migration; the public sources do not give a count of legacy names or rejected new requests.

The distinction matters. A prefix filter built from a misleading set can fail even when every route announcement is syntactically sound. APNIC now asks who is entitled to mint the container name before other operators import its contents.

Sources: prop-151 history and impact; current APNIC policy; AS-SET object guide; 2023 product review.