Time to revise RFC 1771

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

RFC 1771's guidance on what to do with a announcement may have
been filled with good intentions, however the few times it has
been executed, it seems to create excessive harm to the Internet.

I propose it is time to revise RFC 1771.

WHEREAS, the error handling of RFC1771 is invoked where there is
a dispute between two implementations of BGP.

WHEREAS, these disputes may be caused by any number of reasons,
including both implementations doing what they each believe are
reasonable actions.

WHEREAS, the resolution of these disputes may be time consuming,

RESOLVED, the error handling mechanism should be revised to reject
only the portion of the announcement in dispute instead of disrupting
the entire BGP session.

This would result in a small number of networks, most likely those
who originated the disputed announcement or are closely associated
with the announcer, being disrupted.  But the portion of the Internet
with generally accepted announcements would not be affected.  This limits
the colleteral damage from these disputed announcements to the small
number of networks in dispute.