Further investigation of this case obliges me to post the following correction and retraction. Additional evidence now strongly suggests that the 216.179.128.0/17 IP address block has NOT been "stolen" as I had suggested yesterday. I simply mis-read the ARIN historical registration ("WhoWas") data with repect to this block. In fact, the ARIN historical "WhoWas" registration data for this block indicates that when the block was first assigned, by ARIN... which the historical WhoWas records show as occuring on 06-24-2002... the block was assigned to a Southern California company named HHSI, Inc. Records available on the California Secretary of State's web site indicate that this company was first registered with the State of California 02/11/2002. Oddly, some seven years would pass after the registration of this California corporation before any documents were filed with California which would designate any officers of the company. On 03/02/2009 however a filing was made indicating the President of the company was a gentleman named Koji Ban. Additional corporate filings in subsequent years indicate that both Mr. Ban and the company, HHSI, Inc. were located at 20 Arches, Irvine, CA 92603. On or about 02-17-2010 the public WHOIS record for the 216.179.128.0/17 block was changed so that instead of designating HHSI, Inc. (California) as the block's registrant, the WHOIS record for the block would henceforth say instead that the registrant of the block was the 2009 vintage Delaware LLC called Azuki, LLC. Unfortunately, we cannot read too much into this change that was made to the block's public-facing WHOIS record. Neither the new WHOIS info nor even the old WHOIS info can be used to reliably infer who or what is the legitimate registrant of the block at any point in time. This is because ARIN, like all of the other Regional Internet Registries, allows registrants to put essentially any bovine excrement they desire into their public-facing WHOIS records. (And, it should be noted, the man behind the recent large scale "Micfo" fraud apparently availed himself of this exact opportunity far subterfuge, in spades.) Regardless, the available records suggest that there are only two likely possibilities in this case: 1) On or about 02-17-2010 HHSI, Inc. (California) transfered the registration of the 216.179.128.0/17 block from itself to the 2009 vintage Delaware entity Azuki, LLC. If this is what happened, then it is likely that the transfer was performed in violation of the applicable ARIN trasfer policy that was in force at the time. (Azuki, LLC did not simply buy-out HHSI, Inc., lock, stock, and barrel in 2010. California records show that HHSI, Inc. continued to be an active California corporation until at least 02/12/2014, and probably well beyond that date.) 2) Alternatively, on or about 02-17-2010 HHSI, Inc. (California) simply altered what would henceforth appear in the public-facing WHOIS record for the the 216.179.128.0/17 block to make it appear... to everyone except ARIN staff, who knew better... that the block was now registered to Azuki, LLC in Delaware. Only ARIN staff can tell us which of these possibilities actually applies. But due to ARIN's strict adherence to contractual confidentiality with respect to all of their resource holders, I do not anticipate that ARIN will actually provide any clarity on this case anytime soon. To summarize, either the block was transferred in 2010 in violation of ARIN's own transfer policy or else the information that we have all been looking at in this block's WHOIS record since 02-17-2010 is and has been nothing other than a very deliberate and bald-faced lie. There is no third option. Regardless of which of the two possible scenarios applies, it is a dead certainty that the registration of the 216.179.128.0/17 block was indeed transferred away from HHSI, Inc. at some point in time, and in a manner that most probably did not comport with applicable ARIN transfer restrictions in place at the time. I say this without fear of contradiction because the State of California currently lists HHSI, Inc. as "suspended". Legally speaking, it no longer exists. It cannot therefore still be a valid contractual counterparty, with ARIN, or with respect to the registration of *any* ARIN-administered resources. All of this ambiguity, and all of these crooked deception games are enabled and materially aided and abetted by the disastrous interplay of two longstanding policies that are and have been in force, for many many years, both at ARIN an also at all of the other RIRs, namely: *) Excessive anal retentiveness with respect to corporate confidentiality which deprives the public at large from even knowing even so much as the accurate and correct legal names of resource holders. *) Policies which permit resource holders to place any arbitrary garbage they desire into their associated public-facing WHOIS records, without there being any vetting at all of that information by the RIRs. I am not now and never have been a big fan of ICANN, but to ICANN"s credit, it at least had the good sense to recognize, years ago, that crooks are in fact present on the Internet, and that many of them have no qualms at all about putting deliberately misleading garbage into the WHOIS records for their registered domain names. As a result, ICANN developed both policies and procedures, feeble though they may be, to try to respond to this perennial and ongoing problem. I do wonder what sort of catastrophy it is going to take before the Regional Internet Registries likewise take at least some affirmative steps to address the fact that -their- WHOIS records are now also (and provably) contaminated with unreliable garbage, put there deliberately by various flavors of Internet miscreants intent on harming the rest of us honest netizens. Regards, rfg