On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 9:39 AM, John R. Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
the problem isn't keeping the database, it's figuring out who can make authoritative statements about each block of IP addresses.
That is an inherently hierarchical question since all IP blocks originally
trace back to allocations from IANA.
Well; It's a hierarchical question only because the current registration scheme is defined in a hierarchical manner. If BGP were being designed today, we could choose 256-Bit AS numbers, and allow each mined or staked block to yield a block of AS numbers prepended by some random previously-unused 128-bit GUID. However, a blockchain could also be used to allow an authority to make a statement representing a resource that can be made a non-withdrawable statement --- in other words, the authority's role or job in the registration process is to originate the registration, and after that is done: their authoritative statement is accepted ONCE per resource. The registration is permanent --- the authority has no ongoing role and no ability to later make a new conflicting statement about that same resource, and the authority has no operational role except to originate new registrations. This would mean that a foreign government could not coerce the authority to "cancel" or mangle a registration to meet a political or adversarial objective of disrupting the ability to co-ordinate networks, since the number registry is an authority of limited power: not an authority of complete power. We can have arguments about the best way to document the chain of
ownership, and conspiracy theories about how the evil RIRs are planning to steal our precious bodily flu^W^WIPs, but "put it in a blockchain!" Puhleeze. R's, John
-- -JH