On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:23:53 +0100 Eliot Lear <lear@cisco.com> wrote:
Steve,
Yah. A market exists today, though it's perforce sub rosa.
An interesting operational question is how to prevent deaggregation as a result of a market. If, say, a company isn't using half of its address space, could it sell that half, to several other parties? Can that be prevented by market means?
This is a strong argument for regulation of the market. A regulated market could provide liquidity needed by those who would otherwise find <unregulated> means to accomplish their ends (such as making private deals that are perhaps undetectable).
I have no problem with regulating markets -- I tend to think they work better that way. (He ducks, fending off the attacks of maddened libertarians...)
It provides an incentive for people to do the right thing, assuming the cost of doing so is not prohibitive (a big assumption if ever there was one).
That's something the market will do very well: balancing the profits against the cost of renumbering. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb