RPKI: Do we need Garbage Collection now?#

Antonis Chariton, AS4601 | Cisco

• Why: Quantifies a genuine routing-security hygiene problem: newly assigned ASNs arriving with pre-existing ROAs that make their holders' hijacks look RPKI-valid.
• What: Methodology-driven measurement: cross-referenced all RIPE ASN assignment dates against RPKI archives (RPKIviews) for ROAs pointing at each ASN the day before assignment — any such ROA is definitionally unintentional. Result: ~21% of new assignments in 2025 (18% in 2026) came with pre-existing ROAs, including double-digit-percentage chances of IPv4-covering ROAs; examples found in every RIR except AFRINIC. The RIPE NCC's re-assignment cleanup covers IRR but not RPKI.
• How: A personal anecdote (a fresh ASN with ROAs authorizing other people's IPv4) turned into a systematic study; the follow-up Address Policy WG session ("Discussion on AS Reallocation") explores fixes: longer quarantine periods, alerting on RPKI objects pointing at unassigned ASes, expanding cleanup policy.
• Where applicable: Anyone relying on RPKI ROV for security decisions; the data is RIPE-region-centric but the problem class exists in all RIRs.