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Latest intelligence on infrastructure operators, policy decisions, market moves, and digital power shifts.
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Two offices, three years: what AFRINIC’s 4 June 2021 election result actually authorised
AFRINIC’s 4 June 2021 announcement did something modest but institutionally necessary: it named Mark Elkins for Board Seat 5 and Simon Balthazar for the Governance Committee, giving each a three-year term. Read closely, the result is a useful example of how a private member…
Story
The Mailbox and the Case File: Drawing Draft 7’s Contactability Boundary
AFRINIC’s seventh abuse-contact proposal contained both a sensible directory rule and the seeds of a much larger institutional role. Its most important sentence placed the definition and escalation of abuse outside the registry’s remit. Its most consequential ambiguity was that…
Story
AFRINIC’s Reserve Lock Was Stronger Than Its Release Plan
In May 2021, AFRINIC placed an additional USD 2 million behind a fixed-deposit account and a demanding approval chain: the chief executive, the head of finance, and one of two senior board officers all had to agree before money could leave. That architecture made internal…
Story
Two Names at the Attestation Gate: What AFRINIC Resolution 202105.610 Made Executable
Eddy M. Kayihura, the Chief Executive Officer, and Subramanian Moonesamy, the Chairman of the Board, were the two people AFRINIC placed at the signature line in May 2021. Resolution 202105.610 approved the company’s financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2020…
Story
Before the vote, the notice: Resolution 202105.609 and AFRINIC’s chain of authority
In May 2021, AFRINIC’s Board recorded a one-sentence decision: Resolution 202105.609 approved the notice for the Annual General Members’ Meeting to be held on 4 June 2021. The sentence looks administrative. Read against the bylaws then in force, however, it marks the first…
Story
The Meaning of “End”: AFRINIC’s Draft 3 and the Discipline of Negative Routing Assertions
One sentence added to an AFRINIC policy proposal in April 2021 drew a vital line: reclaimed number resources should enter the registry’s AS0 coverage only after reclamation ends. That line can protect routing security, but only if “the end” is made into a state that outsiders can…
Creators
Eric Dumazet and the small queues shaping Linux server economics
A heavily loaded server can show excellent throughput while wasting time, memory and processor behind its own packets. Eric Dumazet’s work on TCP Small Queues, fair queueing, pacing and in-memory structure layout has helped Linux account for these hidden costs more accurately. It…
Creators
Eric Dumazet and the small queues that underpin the Linux server economy
Servers under heavy load can look healthy on throughput graphs while still wasting time, memory and CPU behind the packets they are about to send. Eric Dumazet's work on TCP Small Queues, fair queueing, pacing and cache-aware data structures has helped Linux account for those…
Global Institutional
OpenTitan’s real test began after the silicon shipped
OpenTitan makes the first security decisions inside a computer inspectable. Its reported March 2026 Chromebook deployment moved the project from open design to commercial hardware, where manufacturers, provisioning systems and long-term maintenance now determine whether…
Story
The version gap inside AFRINIC’s transfer-policy appeal
AFRINIC’s 2020 transfer-policy dispute exposed a deceptively hard problem: when a draft changes while other internet registries are still assessing it, an appeal cannot prove compatibility—or incompatibility—by attaching an old reply to new words. It needs a versioned record that…
Creators
Eric Dumazet and the small queues that support the Linux server economy
A busy server can deliver excellent performance figures while still losing time, memory and CPU capacity behind its own packets. Eric Dumazet's work on TCP Small Queues, fair queueing, pacing and cache-sensitive structures helped Linux account for those hidden costs with more…
Creators
Eric Dumazet and the small queues in Linux server economics
A heavily loaded server can look excellent on a throughput chart and still waste time, memory and CPU behind its own packets. Eric Dumazet's work on TCP Small Queues, fair queueing, pacing and cache-conscious data structures helped Linux account for these hidden costs more…
Creators
Eric Dumazet and the small queues inside the Linux server economy
A busy server can look excellent on a throughput plot while wasting time, memory and processor capacity behind packets that have not yet left the machine. Eric Dumazet's work on TCP Small Queues, fair queueing, pacing and cache-aware data-structure layout has helped Linux account…
Creators
Eric Dumazet and the small queues inside Linux server economics
A busy server can appear healthy on a throughput chart while wasting time, memory and processor capacity behind its own packets. Eric Dumazet’s work on TCP Small Queues, fair queueing, pacing and cache-aware data structures helped Linux account for those hidden costs more…
Creators
Stephen Hemminger and the commands that make Linux networking operable
Stephen Hemminger’s long stewardship of iproute2 sits between Linux kernel capability and operational control. The suite’s commands make routes, queues, bridges, sockets and devices inspectable, while carrying decades of compatibility and maintainer obligations.
Story
Three seats were enough on paper: AFRINIC’s disputed quorum repair
A five-seat review body lost two members while three appeals needed somewhere to go. AFRINIC’s Board answered with a temporary permission: the three survivors could carry on. They answered in turn that they would not. That compact reversal exposes a larger institutional…
Story
AFRINIC’s one-sentence election decision and the missing public version receipt
On 20 January 2021, AFRINIC’s Board said in a single sentence that it had reviewed the Election Processes and Guidelines and adopted the new text “as amended”. Beneath that economical corporate act lay a much more elaborate public mechanism for nominations, screening, voting and…
Story
Resolution 202104.602 and AFRINIC’s Twenty-Four-Hour Appointment Bridge
On 9 April 2021, AFRINIC’s Policy Liaison named Vincent Ngundi and Darwin da Costa as the Policy Development Working Group’s consensus choice but left their term lengths unresolved; on 10 April, the Board crossed that remaining gap by assigning Vincent two years and Darwin one…
Story
AFRINIC ended a technical committee. The missing question is what survived it
Resolution 202101.594 may have been an entirely sensible corporate sunset: an inactive committee had, the Board said, finished its original work and drifted into matters better owned by operations. But ending an organ is not the same as demonstrating that its useful controls…
Story
What Changed When AFRINIC Consulted on Its Mailing-List Terms?
AFRINIC’s Board approved mailing-list Terms of Use for implementation on 20 January 2021, AFRINIC opened comments from 2 to 28 February, and the Board unanimously approved a stated revised proposal on 3 March. Yet the surviving public page comparison reveals only a repaired…