ASPA and Roles: What's up with that?#

Antonis Chariton (AS4601 | Cisco)

• Why: Routing security is a core interest, and ASPA (Autonomous System Provider Authorization) is the current frontier of RPKI-based BGP security — the mechanism that extends protection beyond ROAs/origin validation to AS-path verification. "Roles" refers to the ASPA registration taxonomy (e.g., provider vs. peer relationships) that has been actively debated in the RPKI working group. A talk titled "What's up with that?" from an operator/standardista (Chariton runs AS4601/Packet Clearing House infrastructure and works on RPKI tooling) is likely a candid status-and-interop report, exactly the kind of transferable operational content this program should surface.
• What: An update on ASPA adoption, the roles model in RPKI, and the practical questions operators face when registering ASPA records and enabling AS-path verification (program text and speaker metadata only).
• How: Presumably: RPKI-signed ASPA objects binding a customer AS to its authorized providers, plus BGP AS-path verification at receiving ASes, with discussion of the role registration semantics that caused deployment confusion.
• Where applicable: Any operator running BGP with RPKI ROV today. Broadly applicable and standards-based (not org-specific), though real-world enforcement value depends on upstream adoption rates — which is likely the crux of the talk.