Summary

  • Alban Kwan rewrote his proposed APNIC definition of IP-address abuse after criticism of the word “unlawful”. Version two grounds the definition in technical harm and gives resource holders the first decision on a report.
  • APNIC 62 made no consensus call on prop-172. The open question is how APNIC could assess an ignored report without quietly becoming the judge of the alleged abuse.

One word can turn a network policy meeting into a tour of the world's legal systems. Alban Kwan's first draft of prop-172 included “unlawful” conduct. The APNIC Secretariat's assessment of that draft pointed to the obvious trap: the same activity can carry different legal meanings across APNIC's region. In version two, Kwan took the word out. A policy editor might call that a small deletion. A lawyer facing several jurisdictions might call it a good night's sleep.

The change fits the person who wrote it. In his APNIC 62 candidate statement, Kwan describes 18 years crossing brand protection, domain management and Internet governance, and identifies himself as founder and CEO of Trusted Notifier Network. He talks about making organisations talk to each other. An earlier APNIC podcast introduction puts the tension plainly: businesses count reputational and response costs, while network people inspect technical signals. Kwan walked into policy with a professional interest in the journey a complaint takes after it lands.

His revised text uses technical harm as the hinge. It names malware, DDoS, malicious probing, routing abuse and infrastructure for phishing or fraud. It also covers attempted harm and material risk, changes the proposal credits to comments from Jonathan Brewer and Terry Sweetser. The first call on a substantiated report would sit with the resource holder. That arrangement gives the operator closest to the network room to act, and puts a name on who must answer when a notice arrives.

Then the neat draft meets the messy case. Kwan's own version-two note acknowledges the unresolved question: if a complainant and a resource holder disagree, how can APNIC judge whether the holder responded responsibly without judging the conduct underneath? A rule can place the first decision with the holder; it still needs a path through a disputed second decision. The proposal also recognises the danger that a formal list might make everyone overlook harms just outside the list.

The APNIC 62 meeting report records discussion and no consensus call on prop-172. Kwan's draft remains a live question. He made the definition more portable by removing a legally loaded word. He also exposed the harder job hidden behind it: designing a complaint route that people will trust when they disagree about what happened.