[AusNOG] Urgent - Pacnet NOC contact (with BGP clue)

[Curtis Raams]

Hello All,

I cannot discuss the nature of this dispute in detail due to the commercial restrictions in place, especially when related to confidentiality. But I will address certain points Mr Seeves has made public thus waiving his presumption of confidentiality.

Firstly I will make the point that I am a networking, software and systems engineer. I am not a lawyer, and do not have the capacity to assess the legal claims and make determinations pertaining to them.

None the less, I am deeply saddened that Steve Skeeves has felt the need to involve me personally in his clients commercial dispute with AINS.
I work at AINS exclusively in the capacity of ICT Manager and have no authority to intervene with this commercial dispute.

Mr Skeeves has made so many wild accusations here, and to the AFP. But what he neglects to inform you is that I have been his ‘only’ after hours contact attempting to mediate a solution.
And he neglects to inform the community that there are ‘commercial’ contracts in place (that I am not completely privy to) that authorise AINS to advertise the IP ranges, and a specific document that outlines exactly how suspension will occur in the case the customer is BGP peered to AINS.

I have explained to the AFP, AustCERT and APNIC (and all those other Steve has decided to involve) that if they expect me to intervene at a technical level, especially without the authority of my employer, going outside the bounds of my authority and to place my own job on the line, I will need to know exactly what law they are potentially breaking so I can mitigate that and then allow the correct people at AINS to investigate and resolve this next week. To this time, all legal authority he has involved has made determinations that there is no obvious law being broken and this appears to be a commercial dispute, and as such they have not involved me further, and I would expect Steven to stop involving me also.

However in all cases, the very minute the relevant authority has confirmed we are a supplier of Alumina, and that Alumina has simply failed to pay their bill and this is the method of suspension employed by my employer, then the ‘criminal’ aspect is gone. There is ‘from my side’ no preconceived attempt to illegally divert the course of traffic to an independent 3rd party by performing route injections as has been claimed. And this is accepted by the parties to date. But as agreed, if someone can show me a section in law where AINS is acting illegally, then I will take steps on my own to avert that breach even without authority.

With regard to bringing in my own history, you are just acting like a child now Steve. I have been on the phone with you several times and it’s like magic you are all polite there “yeh I know you cannot do anything, etc etc”, but then you come on here and build a story of some rouge tech illegally bringing down your network.

Everyone knows of my history with Koala Telecom, and yes I was the GM of Koala Telecom, and yes it failed. I am sorry to say mate, I have moved on.
I was employed as an engineer at Blitz Telecom (much like all other staff who were offered employment) due to my history and understanding of the KT network, and no doubt, much to your disgust because I am a bloody good engineer. Or who knows, maybe I just needed to feed my wife and two children like any other normal person.

On to Alumina. You have made a very bold claim that I was ‘fired’ from Alumina. You forget to tell that I ‘created’ Alumina Networks as an IT / Telco consulting company and sold this to your now employer for a defined sum of money. I was upset with the way your employer was conducting business (which was Koala all over) and provided my 8 weeks’ notice of termination of my employment. If you gain authority from your employer, I will post me resignation letter here for all to see. If you dispute this claim, then you will wait that confidentially and I will post it anyway.

Prior to starting Alumina Networks, I was working for AINS as ICT manager however I left in an attempt to setup Alumina, and only returned after my orderly resignation from that company. The reasons being that AINS is going though extraordinary growth and required orderly structure such as ITIL and other IT operational skills that I could provide ample of.

And I am sorry to say mate, I am very happy in my position and the duties I perform. I accept my weakness, I am not the CEO/CFO and I have the perfect opportunity to allow my technical, development and systems management capabilities be challenges daily and continue to develop myself as an ICT manager in this ever competitive yet exciting industry.

I do respectfully ask you to refrain from posting information about me, especially when used to imply I am complicit in illegal activity, which if illegal or not, has nothing to do with me anyway.

I do hope you can resolve this dispute, and your employers are back online (with AINS or otherwise). I do hold high regard for the owners of Alumina, and have even personally spoken to the GM late Friday who also accepted I was powerless to intervene.

If however, this turns out to be commercially inappropriate, then I expect Alumina will be entitled to make those claims in a court of law, and seek compensation pursuant to that.

I would also respectfully request all the other members of this board not entertain discussions targeted or related to me on a personal level. And if you feel AINS acted in appropriate, then keep your discussions related to that, and not make this a personal attack on an engineer who was unlucky enough to have the afterhours call service that received Stevens call.

Thank you,
Curtis Raams
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