I dislike CFs role in the modern Internet as much as the next person, but this is a bunch of speculation trying to connect dots with no basis other than that a Canonical cert renewal happened on the same day as a company transfer.
There might be somewhat of a tangential story, however, in that Njalla seems to have reorganized or changed ownership fairly recently[1], and that Njalla and immateriali.sm seem to be related entities[2]
I was a bit curious about the MAC address since it isn't locally administered which indicates to me that someone likely deliberately chose this range of addresses.
Googling for '"90:de:01" linode' and '"90:de:00" linode' indicates that addresses from these blocks have been assigned to other linode VMs recently. I sadly don't have a linode VM of my own to compare with right now but it would seem like the traffic has been routed to another VM on linode infrastructure
As an anecdote this is why the emergency number in Sweden used to be 90 000, in the dark or in a smoke-filled room you'd be able to feel your way to the last number(9), and then pull four short times from 0 to the finger stop to get emergency service.
My TV is completely airgapped now for privacy reasons, but I really wish there was a way to replace the OS running on it.
I used to be(and still am) a big fan of the Smart TV concept, seeing as there's a whole quad core ARM SoC built into my TV that might as well take the streaming duty instead of having an extra HTPC or Chromecast lying outside of it.
You need to make the distinction between PA(provider allocated) and PI(provider independent) objects, as well as the distinction between LIRs(members of the RIPE NCC) and end-users.
PA can only be held for further assignment in their networks by a LIR that is a member of the RIPE NCC, received in two ways: maximum of one IPv4 allocation /22 with proper justification, or acquisition through merger with another LIR. The membership fees are as you mentioned.
PI resources are assigned to end-users in the region, that do not need to be members of the NCC. They do however need a valid end-user agreement with a LIR, and each(unless they are allocated on the same date) object entails a 50€/yr fee, billed to the LIR. PI IPv4 is no longer being assigned from RIPE, but existing ones are openly traded.
My guess would be that the nets you were looking at were PI networks, so no, you do not need to pay the membership fee.
Don't get me wrong - it's in no way illegal to use A/AAAA-pointers in your zone root.
RFC 1034[0] however, argues for a tree-based structure and lays emphasis on the value of branching. It being 'wrong' might have been too strong a description, how about it being 'improper'?
When I've seen SSH access being offered as a network service and not as a means to administrate other services on a network it's often been under names such as 'shell.example.com' - not exactly your 'ssh' label but an approximation.
That's not how Google GGC and their LB works, the authoritative NSes looks at the IP of the querying resolver and hands out a response depending on that
I would encourage fairly tech-savvy users to set up their own DNS resolvers - fast, more private and a way of bypassing your ISPs censorship.
Just make sure to configure ACLs so recursive queries are limited to you and not part of a botnet. Also BIND9 might not be a good idea for a low-maintenance solution.
There might be somewhat of a tangential story, however, in that Njalla seems to have reorganized or changed ownership fairly recently[1], and that Njalla and immateriali.sm seem to be related entities[2]
https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/njalla-has-silently-changed-a-word... https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/pdf/2026/dio20...