How would you feel about having the registries serve as the root of a hierarchical certificate system?
What about the swamp space?
Presumably if the users of class C blocks in the swamp want to use the certficate services that the registry provides then the registries would sell that service for some reasonable fee. Some people labor under the misunderstanding that users of swamp space actually "own" IP addresses and therefore have the right to not pay anybody for anything at anytime. However, since "ownership" is a legal concept and since IP address ownership has never been tested in the courts, it is a moot point. Do you suppose that if a Microsoft salesman had given me a free copy of Windows back in 1990, I would have a right to use any version of Windows for free forever? --Michael Dillon