John, It seams that by stating "Note that ARIN can't allow transfers contrary to the community-developed policy" that you intend to say that ARIN, based on your current policies and processes, will not actively update whois information for legacy block holders that either "sub-assign" or "Transfer" segments of their legacy space to another entity. Is this the case? If so, as many others seam to be asking, do you and the ARIN legal representatives, feel that you can actually legally follow this course and do you feel that, as you had nothing to do with the assignment of this space that you have any real right to deny these services. The community expects you to to have a certain quality of information in the database and not offering updating services can present operational issues to those of us using the database as intended. James ----- Original Message ----- On Feb 3, 2011, at 6:38 PM, Benson Schliesser wrote:
Having said that, it should be clear that I view ARIN "reclaiming" legacy addresses that aren't under contract (i.e. LRSA) as fraud, perhaps even in the legal sense of the word. It might also be considered theft by some. But outright reclaiming from ongoing address holders isn't a big concern of mine, because I doubt ARIN will go far down that path (if it goes at all). My real concern is that ARIN might refuse to recognize legacy transfers, fail to update the Whois database, issue RPKI inappropriately, and cause real damage to live networks. This would be bad for the networks that implement ARIN Whois-based policy, of course.
Benson - ARIN provides legacy holders with WHOIS and IN-ADDR services without charge. If a legacy holder simply wishes to make use of their resources and maintains current directory information, ARIN left them fairly undisturbed since its formation. Via the Legacy RSA, ARIN offers contractual assurances to legacy holders of ARIN providing these services, as well as certain protections from reclamation and policy changes. Note that ARIN can't allow transfers contrary to the community-developed policy, so legacy address holders who wish to do more then just use their resources (e.g. transfer them) are encouraged to get involved in the community to create policies that match their needs. /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN