Your elected leaders: Terry Sweetser, Routing Security SIG Chair

Terry presents the Routing Security SIG Report during the 2026 APNIC Annual General Meeting.

The APNIC Elected Leaders series celebrates the journeys and contributions of individuals who have stepped up to serve in volunteer leadership roles, helping to advance Internet operations across the Asia Pacific region. Through their stories, we hope you'll gain insight into what motivates them, feel more connected to our community, and be inspired to get involved and help shape the future of the Internet.

When APNIC Members elected Terry Sweetser as Chair of the Routing Security Special Interest Group (SIG) at APNIC 60, they chose someone whose career has unfolded alongside the Internet itself. Terry first encountered the Internet in 1989 while working as a laboratory technician at Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

"Someone senior walked in and said we were getting connected to this thing in a couple of weeks," he recalled. "It used something called 'IP', and apparently it needed to be useful."

For Terry, this formative period taught improvisation, experimentation, and the collaborative trust on which the early Internet was built - qualities that still shape the network today.

From engineering to community leadership

Across more than 30 years in telecommunications and Internet infrastructure, Terry's career expanded from purely technical work into leadership and community development. Early on, he focused heavily on engineering, but completing a Master's of Business Administration (MBA) broadened his perspective.

"Most technical people just focus on the bits and bytes," he said. "But doing the MBA opened my eyes to the other layers - policy, governance, and how the wider ecosystem fits together."

That shift eventually led him into general management, including running IX Australia, where he became deeply involved in operator communities and Network Operator Groups (NOGs). Working with Internet exchanges highlighted the collaborative nature of Internet operations and revealed a structural challenge - a small group of highly experienced operators held much of the community's institutional knowledge.

"You'd look around the room and see the same people," he said. "It made me think we need to make sure new people are coming through."

A long-standing routing security problem

Routing security naturally became a focus for Terry. The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which underpins global Internet routing, was built on trust between operators and lacked mechanisms to validate route announcements.

"You were effectively betting your company's ability to route packets on the rest of the Internet behaving properly," he said.

Although the problem was recognized in the 1990s, meaningful progress took decades, and it was not until the development of the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) in the 2010s that operators gained a practical validation tool. Today, RPKI adoption is growing, but unevenly.

"The top 100 networks on the planet are largely doing ROV [Route Origin Validation] now," he said. "That gives us around 85% coverage of the global Internet for validation." The challenge is that relatively few networks publish the necessary data. "Globally, only about a third of routes are actually signed," he said. "So, the campaign now should be simple - sign your routes."

Deployment barriers beyond technology

Through years of workshops and training across South Asia and the Pacific, Terry has found that barriers to routing security have changed.

"The technology is actually easy to deploy," he said. "The challenge is organizational rather than technical." Stronger incentives could help, such as embedding routing security requirements into service contracts. "If large providers required RPKI as part of their connectivity agreements, it would secure their networks as much as their customers'," he said.

He points to Indonesia, host of the most recent Routing Security SIG, as a success story. A coordinated push by exchanges and operator groups dramatically accelerated adoption. "They went from almost nothing to around 90% adoption in about a year," he said.

A platform for awareness and action

As Routing Security SIG Chair, Terry sees the group primarily as a platform for awareness. "The SIG is a vehicle for getting information out to the wider ecosystem," he said. "You bring experts into the room, give them a platform, and explain what the problem is and how the technology solves it." Awareness, he argues, is the foundation for change: "You have to show people that this works. You need that social proof - networks seeing that other operators are doing it successfully."

His plans for the SIG include more practical sessions focused on real-world deployment issues and regular online events covering new developments such as Autonomous System Provider Authorization (ASPA). The aim is to move the conversation from discussion to implementation.

Building the next generation of leaders

For those looking to get involved, Terry's advice is straightforward: Start locally. "If you want to become a technical community leader, get involved in your local NOG," he said. "And if there isn't one, start one."

Beyond technical skills, these communities provide experience in governance, coordination, and leadership. The biggest barrier, however, is often confidence. He recalls facing that moment himself early in his career, sitting across from senior officials in international meetings while still in his twenties.

"It can feel intimidating, but you realize everyone is just there to solve the same problems," he said.

Sustaining the Internet's operational community depends on more people stepping forward and being supported to stay engaged over time. "That's how you eventually get the next generation of SIG chairs, policy leaders, and board members," he said.

Looking ahead

Through NOGs, workshops, and APNIC events, Terry hopes to help operators strengthen routing security and prepare the next generation of community leaders. Routing security is ultimately a shared responsibility, and the path forward is clear.

Participation is where that change begins.

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