Sander Steffann and RIPE’s voluntary transfer lock

Sander Steffann Built a Padlock That Refuses Its Owner’s Spare Key

Why it matters

The registry's most useful reply can be “come back when the clock runs out.” Steffann and two co-authors gave address holders a way to order that reply in advance.

Sofia Ren26 October 2026Reading Time 2 minLast update: 26 October 2026

Sander Steffann; likeness grounded in the named RIPE NCC portrait. The room is imagined.

Summary

Sander Steffann, Nataliia Pohorska and Viktoriia Opanasiuk authored RIPE proposal 2023-03 after Ukrainian holders raised the risk of transfers under pressure.
The implemented rule lets a holder lock selected whole IPv4 or IPv6 blocks and AS numbers against ordinary transfers for an agreed term. Once it starts, even the holder cannot simply call the transfer desk and undo it.

An address holder can sign a transfer request. That sounds like the end of the paperwork until the signature itself becomes the problem. When Ukrainian network operators feared losing resources under duress, the RIPE NCC Board offered a temporary six-month stop in December 2022. The board expected the community to write a lasting rule. Sander Steffann joined Nataliia Pohorska and Viktoriia Opanasiuk to do exactly that.

Their 2023 proposal turns an owner's advance instruction into a constraint on the registry. The holder names the resources and the term. RIPE NCC and the holder agree on start and end dates. During that window, the registry will refuse to process an ordinary transfer request for the locked resources. A later signature from the same holder does not act as a spare key. That stubbornness is the entire product.

The lock has clean edges. RIPE-806 covers transferable IPv4, IPv6 and AS numbers registered with RIPE NCC; a holder can select some complete allocations or assignments rather than freeze everything. It excludes legacy resources and LIR sub-allocations and assignments. Six, twelve and twenty-four months are the recommended terms. The lock starts on approval, cannot be cancelled mid-term and expires automatically unless a new request is made, as the service instructions explain.

The proposal was accepted on 20 October 2023 and implemented on 3 January 2024. Its mechanism is deliberately narrower than a universal claim of ownership: mergers, acquisitions and binding law have their own procedures. Steffann's contribution was to help write a dated instruction that makes the ordinary registry transfer desk hold its ground when a hurried request arrives. The padlock is useful precisely because its owner cannot charm it open five minutes later.