Are we hearing then that **ARPA has given up any and all of its authority over IANA**? That DOD no longer claims to own IP numbers? Hans Werner, I'd prefer for you to be precisely correct in your assertion about the public property nature of IANA, IP numbers etc. I'd love to thank Arpa for giving freedom to IANA and DOD for doing the same to IP numbers. But I have not seen any evidence that they have indeed done this. If they have perhaps the relevant people at ARPA and DOD would come out and confirm just exactly what they consider their current authority over IANA and IP numbers to be?
Gordon: Ahem, while yours is a reasonable response (and I would not mind at all seeing an answer to your questions), I don't think I said what you think I was saying. I said "formally ... personal property of the IANA ..." ... "fostered and allowed to transition to the international private sector." The process has more or less transitioned, with close to all of the actual decisions not being made by the US DoD or the IANA, and most certainly not in isolation. For that matter, I remember many years ago the IANA having actually *asked* for guidance from more sectors of the community, so the right things would happen. In that sense the community (we all, myself included) screwed up by not working more *with* the IANA). They are not evil, neither is the InterNIC. I suppose that the Internet at large has alot of leverage with the Internet. If all its clients in the world would get together and agree to "roll their own," perhaps starting with the old IP addresses, what leverage would ARPA have? I guess it would be pretty close to zero. Just nobody has the guts or stamina to pull that off, especially since it would be an organizational nightmare. All this stuff is more work than it seems from the outside. All it takes is to get everyone to agree to hijack the address space. Start at the IEPG, may be, then work downwards from there. With lots of antacid handy you may even make it. We don't even have systemic Internet management, and until someone or some organization pulls such a thing off, may be we should be happy that things are as organized as they are, and move on from here, and focus on requirements, rather than perceptions. Hans-Werner