Ben Maddison

Nominee Details

Name: Ben Maddison
Position: Director – Network Operations
Organization: Workonline Communications
MANRS participant (Y/N): Yes

Biographical Information

Ben Maddison is co-founder and Director of Workonline Communications, a leading African wholesale IP transit service provider, the first African operator to join the MANRS initiative, and the first African operator to begin discarding RPKI-ROV invalid routes in BGP.

Ben has been active in the routing security community for several years, is the author of multiple open source tools for routing policy and security operations, and was a co-author of the first MANRS BCOP document.

Ben currently serves as co-chair of the Afrinic DBWG, and is an active participant in the SIDROPS working group at the IETF.

Nominee Statement

I have been actively involved in hands-on BGP routing security for several years, including as the engineering lead of an important transit network with a strong focus on routing security and hygiene.
I therefore have a deep knowledge of the operational issues and best practices encountered by network operators, and the technologies that underpin them.

I believe in the decentralized model of Internet operations, and that this model can only function if those involved take collective responsibility for our shared resource, the DFZ.

The MANRS initiative was established to focus on the social collective action problem, rather than the engineering problem, faced by operators.

In scaling to the current size (both in participant numbers, and program diversity) I am concerned that this focus has been diluted.

As part of the steering committee, I would seek to re-focus on the technology agnostic goals as set out in the original manifesto.

Nominated by: Self-nomination