The Fix That Needs What the Problem Needed

BGP's vulnerability was never really technical. It was a coordination problem dressed in protocol clothing. The system assumed honest peers. No verification. Just trust.

RPKI, the cryptographic patch meant to solve this, works through an entirely different mechanism. But it runs on the same fuel. Signing your routes only matters if others validate them. Validating only pays off if others sign. The single best predictor of adoption turns out to be adoption itself.

So the fix doesn't just address the coordination failure. It inherits it whole.