Has this been discussed here? I did a quickie search and saw nothing. Other than spam to a technical mailing list, do you guys care, or is it a non-issue? scott --- Begin forwarded message: From: "Martin v. Löwis" <martin@v.loewis.de> To: apnic-talk@lists.apnic.net Subject: [apnic-talk] IPv4 address exchange Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:07:59 +0200 With the address pool exhausted in APNIC for regular allocations, service providers will need a way to acquire additional address blocks for deployment; by discovering resources that are currently unused (or can be released by the current user with sufficient effort). In order to promote such address transfers, we are offering the Asia-Pacific region a platform, at http://tradeipv4.com/ While this platform is designed to ultimately allow transfer of addresses within and across all regions of the world, we expect that interest within the APNIC community will be largest, hence this announcement. Kind regards, Martin v. Löwis _______________________________________________ apnic-talk mailing list apnic-talk@lists.apnic.net http://mailman.apnic.net/mailman/listinfo/apnic-talk
Yes... See ARIN NRPM 8.3 and Simplified Transfer Listing Service (STLS). http://www.arin.net If you want to see changes to these, suggest submitting policy via ARIN PPML or suggestions via the ARIN Consultation and Suggestion Process (ACSP). Both are documented at the above web site. Owen On Apr 18, 2011, at 3:57 PM, Scott Weeks wrote:
Has this been discussed here? I did a quickie search and saw nothing. Other than spam to a technical mailing list, do you guys care, or is it a non-issue?
scott
--- Begin forwarded message:
From: "Martin v. Löwis" <martin@v.loewis.de> To: apnic-talk@lists.apnic.net Subject: [apnic-talk] IPv4 address exchange Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:07:59 +0200
With the address pool exhausted in APNIC for regular allocations, service providers will need a way to acquire additional address blocks for deployment; by discovering resources that are currently unused (or can be released by the current user with sufficient effort).
In order to promote such address transfers, we are offering the Asia-Pacific region a platform, at
While this platform is designed to ultimately allow transfer of addresses within and across all regions of the world, we expect that interest within the APNIC community will be largest, hence this announcement.
Kind regards, Martin v. Löwis _______________________________________________ apnic-talk mailing list apnic-talk@lists.apnic.net http://mailman.apnic.net/mailman/listinfo/apnic-talk
On Apr 18, 2011, at 4:10 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
Yes... See ARIN NRPM 8.3 and Simplified Transfer Listing Service (STLS).
ARIN allows the listing of non-ARIN blocks on their listing service? Also, doesn't the Microsoft-Nortel transaction violate NPRM 8.3 in that according to the court documents I've seen, Microsoft appears to have signed an LRSA (not an RSA as would seem to be required by the NPRM and as mentioned on ARIN's press release) and there doesn't appear to be anything suggesting Nortel entered into any agreement with ARIN (RSA or LRSA, however I will admit I haven't looked too closely)?
If you want to see changes to these, suggest submitting policy via ARIN PPML or suggestions via the ARIN Consultation and Suggestion Process (ACSP).
As far as I can tell, the participants in ARIN's processes are more interested in trying to be a regulator than in being a registry. Given ARIN is not a government body and it does not have full buy-in from those who they would try to regulate, I suspect this will directly result in a proliferation of folks like tradeipv4.com, depository.net, etc. Unfortunately, I figure this will have negative repercussions for network operations (unless someone steps in and provides a definitive "address titles registry"). Regards, -drc
On Apr 18, 2011, at 6:33 PM, David Conrad wrote:
Also, doesn't the Microsoft-Nortel transaction violate NPRM 8.3 in that according to the court documents I've seen,
John Curran has stated unambiguously (on the ARIN PPML mailing list) that NRPM policy *was* followed. While I may disagree, at present I'm rather focused on understanding how he interprets and implements this policy. Here are my understandings at this time:
Microsoft appears to have signed an LRSA (not an RSA as would seem to be required by the NPRM and as mentioned on ARIN's press release)
Court documents show that "a LRSA" has been agreed rather than "the RSA". As you point out, the actual text of NRPM requires RSA. Thus I assume that ARIN staff procedure will accept any form of RSA as satisfying this requirement, including the standard LRSA or a negotiated LRSA. (This latter possibility makes me wonder about what MSFT actually agreed to, in their version of the LRSA, and whether it will be fairly offered to all parties...)
and there doesn't appear to be anything suggesting Nortel entered into any agreement with ARIN (RSA or LRSA, however I will admit I haven't looked too closely)?
The court documents do not indicate that Nortel has agreed anything with ARIN. This brings to question, how were the blocks "released" to ARIN for transfer? In answer, John Curran has stated that the court filings satisfy this requirement without any further agreement with Nortel. Thus I assume that ARIN will accept any legal document confirming ownership and the desire to transfer. There is another aspect of NRPM 8.3 (specified transfer policy) that appears, to an outside observer, to have been ignored by this Nortel/Microsoft transfer: needs justification. However, John Curran has stated that it did occur. Somehow, according to him, Microsoft has demonstrated a need for 666,624 IPv4 addresses in the form of the exact block(s) that are being transferred. (For what it's worth, I think "needs justification" is bad policy for a market. My only concern here is whether ARIN follows community developed policy, as John says they have.) Cheers, -Benson
On Apr 18, 2011, at 6:33 PM, David Conrad wrote:
As far as I can tell, the participants in ARIN's processes are more interested in trying to be a regulator than in being a registry. Given ARIN is not a government body and it does not have full buy-in from those who they would try to regulate, I suspect this will directly result in a proliferation of folks like tradeipv4.com, depository.net, etc. Unfortunately, I figure this will have negative repercussions for network operations (unless someone steps in and provides a definitive "address titles registry").
I agree completely with this concern. Against good advice of friends (who said I would be wasting my time), I tried to do something about it: I introduced several policy proposals to ARIN that deal with the question of authority and ownership. At John Curran's advice, the ARIN Advisory Council abandoned my proposals. Two of them are now in "petition" for further discussion, including ARIN-prop-134 which outlines how to identify a "legitimate address holder" and ARIN-prop-136 which allows a Legacy holder to "opt-out" of ARIN's services. The idea is to make it possible for legacy holders (who don't have a contract with ARIN) to disarm ARIN's whois weapon. If anybody on NANOG supports these concepts, please express your support to PPML so that the proposals can move forward. Please see these links for more info:
http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/2011-April/020604.html
http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/2011-April/020605.html
Cheers, -Benson
At John Curran's advice, the ARIN Advisory Council abandoned my proposals. Two of them are now in "petition" for further discussion, including ARIN-prop-134 which outlines how to identify a "legitimate address holder" and ARIN-prop-136 which allows a Legacy holder to "opt-out" of ARIN's services. The idea is to make it possible for legacy holders (who don't have a contract with ARIN) to disarm ARIN's whois weapon.
I don't agree with this characterization of our actions. I did not feel that John Curran advised us to act in any particular direction. Yes, he did raise some concerns about the outcome of the policy proposals being adopted, but, many of us already had those concerns in mind before John said anything. I believe that if the AC felt that your proposals were in the best interests of the community and/or had the broad support of the community, we would have placed them on the docket with or without the concerns expressed by Mr. Curran. I am speaking here only of my own personal perspective, but, I can assure you that my vote in favor of abandoning your proposals was based entirely on the lack of community support for the proposals and the nature of the proposals themselves being contrary to what I believed was the good of the community. Owen
On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 18:59, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:
At John Curran's advice, the ARIN Advisory Council abandoned my proposals. Two of them are now in "petition" for further discussion, including ARIN-prop-134 which outlines how to identify a "legitimate address holder" and ARIN-prop-136 which allows a Legacy holder to "opt-out" of ARIN's services. The idea is to make it possible for legacy holders (who don't have a contract with ARIN) to disarm ARIN's whois weapon.
I don't agree with this characterization of our actions.
Nor do I. Those that wish to understand the ARIN Advisory Council's actions in earnest can find the results of the AC meeting in question here: [http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/2011-March/020373.html] and the minutes from that meeting, here: [https://www.arin.net/about_us/ac/ac2011_0317.html]. You are also welcome to ping me off-list (or on arin-ppml) if you are interested in a further explanation of my own reasons for voting to abandon the proposals in question. Cheers, ~Chris
I did not feel that John Curran advised us to act in any particular direction. Yes, he did raise some concerns about the outcome of the policy proposals being adopted, but, many of us already had those concerns in mind before John said anything.
I believe that if the AC felt that your proposals were in the best interests of the community and/or had the broad support of the community, we would have placed them on the docket with or without the concerns expressed by Mr. Curran.
I am speaking here only of my own personal perspective, but, I can assure you that my vote in favor of abandoning your proposals was based entirely on the lack of community support for the proposals and the nature of the proposals themselves being contrary to what I believed was the good of the community.
Owen
-- @ChrisGrundemann weblog.chrisgrundemann.com www.burningwiththebush.com www.theIPv6experts.net www.coisoc.org
I introduced several policy proposals to ARIN that deal with the question of authority and ownership. ... If anybody on NANOG supports these concepts, please express your support to PPML so that the proposals can move forward.
perhaps, if you are seeking support for commercial activity, you should make your employment more clear and declare any conflicts of interest. randy
Hi, Randy. On Apr 18, 2011, at 9:20 PM, Randy Bush wrote:
I introduced several policy proposals to ARIN that deal with the question of authority and ownership. ... If anybody on NANOG supports these concepts, please express your support to PPML so that the proposals can move forward.
perhaps, if you are seeking support for commercial activity, you should make your employment more clear and declare any conflicts of interest.
Fair enough. I am employed by Cisco Systems, but all of my statements are my own and I do not represent my employer. I believe that my employer may benefit from any policy that makes IP addresses more available to more of our customers - we can perhaps sell more routers if more people have addresses - but nobody from Cisco has encouraged me to work in this topic. Otherwise, I have no commercial interest in the outcome of the policy proposals that I've made. The proposals that I've put forward are an honest attempt to motivate conversation. If anybody has any doubts and/or I can clarify anything about my interests, let me know. Cheers, -Benson
perhaps, if you are seeking support for commercial activity, you should make your employment more clear and declare any conflicts of interest.
Fair enough.
I am employed by Cisco Systems, but all of my statements are my own and I do not represent my employer. I believe that my employer may benefit from any policy that makes IP addresses more available to more of our customers - we can perhaps sell more routers if more people have addresses - but nobody from Cisco has encouraged me to work in this topic. Otherwise, I have no commercial interest in the outcome of the policy proposals that I've made. The proposals that I've put forward are an honest attempt to motivate conversation.
On the contrary, I believe router vendors including but not limited to Cisco benefits more from IPv4 address exhaustion, as it's an opportunity to sell new gear that can do hardware forwarding of IPv6 packets, or sell software upgrades to CPU-based platforms (either due to lack of IPv6 altogether or lack of support of newer IPv6 features). That doesn't mean that router vendors are promoting address exhaustion chaos to get new business. That would be a nice conspiracy theory, though... Rubens
On Apr 18, 2011, at 10:08 PM, Randy Bush wrote:
If anybody has any doubts and/or I can clarify anything about my interests, let me know.
could you please clarify your relationship to depository.com?
I know some of the people involved in Depository, and I have spoken with them about what they're trying to do. I might go so far as to call some of them friends. But to my knowledge I have no formal relationship with Depository or any affiliated company. Cheers, -Benson
On Apr 18, 2011, at 4:33 PM, David Conrad wrote:
On Apr 18, 2011, at 4:10 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
Yes... See ARIN NRPM 8.3 and Simplified Transfer Listing Service (STLS).
ARIN allows the listing of non-ARIN blocks on their listing service?
No. If you're talking about inter-RIR transfers, then, that would be subject to draft policy 2011-1 which was reviewed at the recent Public Policy meeting in San Juan, PR and will be discussed by the AC again in May.
Also, doesn't the Microsoft-Nortel transaction violate NPRM 8.3 in that according to the court documents I've seen, Microsoft appears to have signed an LRSA (not an RSA as would seem to be required by the NPRM and as mentioned on ARIN's press release) and there doesn't appear to be anything suggesting Nortel entered into any agreement with ARIN (RSA or LRSA, however I will admit I haven't looked too closely)?
At the request of counsel, I am not going to comment on this. I do not have enough data available to me at this time to make any such judgment one way or the other.
If you want to see changes to these, suggest submitting policy via ARIN PPML or suggestions via the ARIN Consultation and Suggestion Process (ACSP).
As far as I can tell, the participants in ARIN's processes are more interested in trying to be a regulator than in being a registry. Given ARIN is not a government body and it does not have full buy-in from those who they would try to regulate, I suspect this will directly result in a proliferation of folks like tradeipv4.com, depository.net, etc. Unfortunately, I figure this will have negative repercussions for network operations (unless someone steps in and provides a definitive "address titles registry").
We have, on multiple occasions agreed to disagree about this, so, it should not come as a surprise that I continue to disagree with you. Owen
On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 7:33 PM, David Conrad <drc@virtualized.org> wrote:
[ARIN] does not have full buy-in from those who they would try to regulate
ARIN has all the buy-in they need: No transit network will (except by act of omission/mistake) allow you to announce IPs that aren't registered to you in an RIR database, or delegated to you by the registrant of those IPs. I am unapologetic when it comes to ARIN. They are very bad at a lot of things, and they allow themselves to be railroaded by organizations that have out-sized budgets / influence (see my post a few years ago regarding Verizon Wireless.) My list of "ARIN gripes" is as long as the day, but I'll spare you the details. If we didn't have ARIN, we would probably have one of two things: 1) no "regulator" at all, thus BGP anarchy (we came surprisingly close to that in the 1990s at least once) 2) a worse "regulator" who is totally uninterested in the small ISP / hosting shop / Fortune 50,000, as opposed to the Fortune 500 If ARIN's primary benefit to us is to protect us from these two unarguably worse evils, they are doing a fine job. Even from my outsider's perspective, I understand that ARIN is sometimes forced to make significant compromises, which we may find objectionable, to prevent us from being truly thrown to the wolves. Would I like ARIN to function better? Sure, in plenty of ways. I do not think it would function better if it were "just a WHOIS database." -- Jeff S Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> Sr Network Operator / Innovative Network Concepts
Jeff, On Apr 18, 2011, at 6:15 PM, Jeff Wheeler wrote:
ARIN has all the buy-in they need: No transit network will (except by act of omission/mistake) allow you to announce IPs that aren't registered to you in an RIR database, or delegated to you by the registrant of those IPs.
And yet, Ron has recently raged on this list about hijacked prefixes used for spamming, so clearly "no transit network" is inaccurate. Regardless, for sake of argument, let's assume ARIN refused to recognize the Microsoft/Nortel sale and Microsoft deploys a few prefixes of those 666K addresses for (say) new MSN services. Do you think ISPs, particularly the larger ones, all over the world would refuse to accept those announcements (especially when their call centers start getting calls from irate customers who aren't able to gain access to MSN services)?
If we didn't have ARIN, we would probably have one of two things:
Just to be clear, I don't believe the suggestion is that ARIN goes away, rather that "post allocation services" (e.g., reverse DNS, registration maintenance, etc.) for IPv4 no longer be a geographical monopoly. However, taking the bait:
1) no "regulator" at all, thus BGP anarchy (we came surprisingly close to that in the 1990s at least once)
And the solution to that "BGP anarchy" (by which I assume you mean a flood of long prefixes) in the 1990s was some ISPs deploying prefix length filters to protect their own infrastructures. Been there, got several t-shirts. Yes, over time, the sales/marketing folks will force the network engineers to remove the filters once hardware has been upgraded, but once established, minimum prefix lengths (at least the perception of them) seem to have a long half-life. It's also true that ARIN (at least currently, before RPKI is deployed) has no control over routing policy so suggesting that they regulate BGP anarchy may not be accurate.
2) a worse "regulator" who is totally uninterested in the small ISP / hosting shop / Fortune 50,000, as opposed to the Fortune 500
We're talking about IPv4 addresses which will (soon) be unavailable from the RIRs because the free pool has been exhausted. The small ISP/hosting shop/Fortune 50,000 who have not already taken steps to adjust to this new reality will simply be screwed regardless of what ARIN or the other RIRs do. Even if alternative "post allocation services" providers didn't exist, the Fortune 500 are going to be able to pay more to the folks with allocated-but-unused addresses than the 'all but Fortune 500' and I have no doubt that the Fortune 500 will be able to justify "need" (to any level of detail) just as well as the 'all but Fortune 500'. Or do you believe ARIN et al. will be establishing price caps and establishing who among the various requesters for the same block deserves to get the SLS seller's blocks? What a bunch of folks seem to have gotten their panties in a bunch about is the idea that without our Benevolent RIR Overlords, Enron-wannabes are going to go around and buy up all the unused IPv4 address space and make a killing selling it to the highest bidder. I'm afraid I haven't been able to get worked up about this: the only difference between the world with the BRO and without I can see is who gets the money (and this is ignoring the debate as to whether speculators can encourage bringing more addresses into play since their sitting on lost opportunity cost of they simply hoard IPv4 addresses). I find the whole discussion quite odd: laws of economics are pretty clear about situations with limited supply and increased demand and the reality is that ARIN is not a regulator and has essentially no enforcement mechanisms outside of contractual relationships. It is a 501(c)(6) consisting of 3865 members, of which a couple of hundred technical folks participate in policy definition processes that affect tens of millions of people, the vast majority of which have never heard of ARIN. As long as the policies ARIN defined by the technical folk don't affect folks with money/power in negative ways, everything is fine. That time is just about over. People really need to adjust.
I do not think it would function better if it were "just a WHOIS database."
To try to bring this back to NANOG (instead of PPML-light), the issue is that since at least two alternative registries have apparently been established, how are network operators going to deal with the fact that the currently execrable "whois database" is almost certainly going to get worse? Regards, -drc
On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 10:35 PM, David Conrad <drc@virtualized.org> wrote:
And yet, Ron has recently raged on this list about hijacked prefixes used for spamming, so clearly "no transit network" is inaccurate.
I try to qualify my remarks when necessary. In this case, I wrote "except by act of omission/mistake," and you evidently did not read that carefully, or have construed "transit network" to mean any two-bit ISP with one BGP customer (or shell company downstream of them), rather than serious, global networks.
Regardless, for sake of argument, let's assume ARIN refused to recognize the Microsoft/Nortel sale and Microsoft deploys a few prefixes of those 666K addresses for (say) new MSN services. Do you think ISPs, particularly the larger ones, all over the world would refuse to accept those announcements (especially when their call centers start getting calls from irate customers who aren't able to gain access to MSN services)?
ARIN has very carefully allowed our industry to largely avoid this choice, as InterNIC did before. Their methods have sometimes been objectionable, but the devil we know is better than the devil we don't.
1) no "regulator" at all, thus BGP anarchy (we came surprisingly close to that in the 1990s at least once)
And the solution to that "BGP anarchy" (by which I assume you mean a flood of long prefixes)
No, I mean if ARIN had lost its perceived or actual legitimacy, and networks really were able to "permanently hijack" whatever IPs they decided to claim for themselves, we would have had anarchy at worst, or more likely, transit-free ISPs with commercial interest in customers not having portable address space controlling all allocations of portable addresses. This almost happened.
We're talking about IPv4 addresses which will (soon) be unavailable
I'm not confused about that. If it were up to me, I would simply freeze all IPv4 allocations immediately. I do not think the current sale-and-transfer scheme is good. I also don't *care* that much, because the more screwed up the "legacy IPv4 Internet" becomes, and the faster it gets there, the better it is for my business. I'm pretty sure I am not alone in this thinking. -- Jeff S Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> Sr Network Operator / Innovative Network Concepts
On Apr 18, 2011, at 10:35 PM, David Conrad wrote:
To try to bring this back to NANOG (instead of PPML-light), the issue is that since at least two alternative registries have apparently been established, how are network operators going to deal with the fact that the currently execrable "whois database" is almost certainly going to get worse?
David - Does it have to get worse simply because there is change? I see no particular reason that the Internet number registry system can't evolve into something with multiple registries including overlapping service regions and competition if that's what folks actually want. We've seen this in the DNS space and I can't say that it necessarily worse or better than what resulted from the prior single registry model. However, it's definitely true that what occurred in the DNS space is clearly documented, has a complete fabric of contractual agreements, and was part of a multi-year discussion regarding goals of the overall system and various proposals on how it should best change. Now, Internet number resources are different in many ways, including the fact that network operators must have reliable access to the information in order to keep things running. Registrants may have exclusive use of their numbers, but the network operators also have a right to know the registration of any given piece of address space. As you know, multiple IP registries would definitely pose some coordination challenges in being able to reliably account for all of the address space at any given moment. What we lack is any meaningful proposals on how to restructure the Internet number registry system, including what are the goals of doing such, how are those goals and the existing requirements are met, and what protections are needed for integrity of the system. It's possible if this were discussed by the global community, it might be obvious how to best proceed or not. Personally, I do not see it as inevitable that "alternative registries" must have a detrimental impact to the WHOIS database, unless they are introduced in an uncoordinated manner and without global discussion of the actual goals. /John
John, On Apr 19, 2011, at 3:46 AM, John Curran wrote:
Does it have to get worse simply because there is change?
Have to? No. However, historically, entropy has generally increased.
I see no particular reason that the Internet number registry system can't evolve into something with multiple registries including overlapping service regions and competition if that's what folks actually want.
We already have multiple registries, albeit with arbitrary (and increasingly unjustifiable and unsustainable) geographical service area monopolies. This actually points to one of the symptoms of the underlying problem: a near terminal case of NIH syndrome. For example, just for fun, compare/contrast the results of the following 5 commands (to pick a prefix at semi-random): % whois -h whois.afrinic.net 128.8.10.5 % whois -h whois.apnic.net 128.8.10.5 % whois -h whois.arin.net 128.8.10.5 % whois -h whois.lacnic.net 128.8.10.5 % whois -h whois.ripe.net 128.8.10.5 Note the wildly differing response structure/schemas/tags/values/etc. Being objective, doesn't this strike you as insane? Even ignoring the simple brokenness of everybody having their own registry data schema/response, I keep hearing from anti-spam folks, law enforcement, network operators, etc., that the quality of the data actually returned is simply abysmal. And soon, network operators are going to be asked to make routing decisions on this data not just at customer acceptance time. However, as far as I can tell, multiple registries isn't what is implicitly being proposed. What appears to be eing proposed is something a bit like the registry/registrar split, where there is a _single_ IPv4 registry and multiple competing 'post-allocation services' providers. A single registry with a single database schema and data representation would seem to me to be infinitely better than what we have now (and what it looks like we're moving towards). I personally don't have a strong opinion on the competitive address registrar idea as long as there is a consistent set of registration requirements, but in my experience (reasonably regulated) competition tends to bring higher quality/lower prices vs. monopolies.
Registrants may have exclusive use of their numbers, but the network operators also have a right to know the registration of any given piece of address space.
I'm not sure I see that there should be a difference in the operational requirements for the DNS registration data, but that's a separate topic.
As you know, multiple IP registries would definitely pose some coordination challenges in being able to reliably account for all of the address space at any given moment.
Which is exactly my point. Given that market forces are driving the establishment of (presumably) competitive "address registrars", of which the first two now apparently exist, how are network operators going to deal with the proliferation of whois databases they're going to need to query to establish 'ownership' of prefixes?
What we lack is any meaningful proposals on how to restructure the Internet number registry system, including what are the goals of doing such, how are those goals and the existing requirements are met, and what protections are needed for integrity of the system.
Unfortunately, I suspect we are past the time in which a well thought out, global consultative action (even assuming an agreeable venue for such a consultation can be identified) would result in a plan of action before being overtaken by events. There are already two "address registrars" and at least 5 (6 if you count IANA) address whois databases. I expect there to be more in the future, particularly now there is an existence proof that you can sell addresses and the Internet doesn't explode. Hoever, perhaps I'm being too pessimistic. What venue do you propose for a global consultative action to be taken in an open, transparent, an unbiased manner?
Personally, I do not see it as inevitable that "alternative registries" must have a detrimental impact to the WHOIS database, unless they are introduced in an uncoordinated manner and without global discussion of the actual goals.
This coming from the CEO of the RIR that decided to come up with their own (and yet another) completely new replacement for the whois protocol (maybe the 5th attempt will be the charm)... Regards, -drc
On Apr 19, 2011, at 12:16 PM, David Conrad wrote:
However, as far as I can tell, multiple registries isn't what is implicitly being proposed. What appears to be eing proposed is something a bit like the registry/registrar split, where there is a _single_ IPv4 registry and multiple competing 'post-allocation services' providers. A single registry with a single database schema and data representation would seem to me to be infinitely better than what we have now (and what it looks like we're moving towards). I personally don't have a strong opinion on the competitive address registrar idea as long as there is a consistent set of registration requirements, but in my experience (reasonably regulated) competition tends to bring higher quality/lower prices vs. monopolies.
Alas, you seem to have better perception skills, since I can't find any proposal containing any of what you outlined above.
What we lack is any meaningful proposals on how to restructure the Internet number registry system, including what are the goals of doing such, how are those goals and the existing requirements are met, and what protections are needed for integrity of the system.
Unfortunately, I suspect we are past the time in which a well thought out, global consultative action (even assuming an agreeable venue for such a consultation can be identified) would result in a plan of action before being overtaken by events. There are already two "address registrars" and at least 5 (6 if you count IANA) address whois databases. I expect there to be more in the future, particularly now there is an existence proof that you can sell addresses and the Internet doesn't explode.
How does transfer of number resources within a region imply additional whois databases?
Hoever, perhaps I'm being too pessimistic. What venue do you propose for a global consultative action to be taken in an open, transparent, an unbiased manner?
I've suggested ICANN, IGF, or the RIRs... (I include the last one specifically for Mr. Mueller, since he observed "One comes away with the conviction that the so-called bottom up policymaking .. is actually (more or less) seriously pursued here." and "I really liked the way nearly all ARIN discussions are in plenary and decisions are actually made. " <http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2010/4/20/4509826.html>) FYI, /John
John, On Apr 19, 2011, at 9:36 AM, John Curran wrote:
There are already two "address registrars" and at least 5 (6 if you count IANA) address whois databases. I expect there to be more in the future, particularly now there is an existence proof that you can sell addresses and the Internet doesn't explode. How does transfer of number resources within a region imply additional whois databases?
Hint: Add % whois -h whois.depository.net 128.8.10.5 to the list I provided you in the previous message. Or are you implying that ARIN and the other RIRs are committing to synchronizing their databases with alternative address registrars as they become established?
What venue do you propose for a global consultative action to be taken in an open, transparent, an unbiased manner? I've suggested ICANN, IGF, or the RIRs...
I find ARIN's new found interests in engaging in ICANN-related processes heartwarming given my past experiences, but I suspect both the ICANN and RIR venues would be somewhat biased against changing the status quo. As for the IGF, my perhaps mistaken perception is that it has a slightly different focus than dealing with the operational implications of the proliferation of alternative address registrars. The main problem is one of timeliness. I doubt the market is going to wait for IGF, ICANN, or even RIR processes. But we'll see. Regards, -drc
On Apr 19, 2011, at 3:29 PM, David Conrad wrote:
to the list I provided you in the previous message. Or are you implying that ARIN and the other RIRs are committing to synchronizing their databases with alternative address registrars as they become established?
If by "established", you mean as a result of global policy established by multi-stakeholder, private sector led, bottom-up policy development model? Quite likely, as ARIN has committed to such principles and has an excellent track record of supporting Internet registry changes that result (e.g. the establishment and recognition of LACNIC and AfriNIC)
What venue do you propose for a global consultative action to be taken in an open, transparent, an unbiased manner? I've suggested ICANN, IGF, or the RIRs...
I find ARIN's new found interests in engaging in ICANN-related processes heartwarming given my past experiences, but I suspect both the ICANN and RIR venues would be somewhat biased against changing the status quo. As for the IGF, my perhaps mistaken perception is that it has a slightly different focus than dealing with the operational implications of the proliferation of alternative address registrars. The main problem is one of timeliness. I doubt the market is going to wait for IGF, ICANN, or even RIR processes. But we'll see.
Quite true... it's very hard to complete in a timely manner something that hasn't yet been started. /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN
On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 12:16 PM, David Conrad <drc@virtualized.org> wrote:
However, as far as I can tell, multiple registries isn't what is implicitly being proposed. What appears to be eing proposed is something a bit like the registry/registrar split, where there is a _single_ IPv4 registry and multiple competing 'post-allocation services' providers.
Are you saying there are people who advocate creating a new ecosystem of service providers for supplying several things that the RIRs exclusively supply today? IN-ADDR delegation, WHOIS registration, and ... that's pretty much it, right? People want to separate the DNS and WHOIS database from ARIN and create new businesses to charge new fees for providing that? Sign me up. As a vendor. I'd love to over-charge for the dead simple task of using an API to push DNS delegation updates to the IN-ADDR servers, and running a whois server. What a great business! I'm sure GoDaddy.com would be happy to add this service to their portfolio. Where is the value for stakeholders? If you really want WHOIS output with a common, unified structure, you can do that. Bulk access to RIR data is available today. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how a bunch of different entities providing fragmented "post-allocation services" is of any benefit. -- Jeff S Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> Sr Network Operator / Innovative Network Concepts
On Apr 19, 2011, at 1:19 PM, Jeff Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> wrote:
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how a bunch of different entities providing fragmented "post-allocation services" is of any benefit.
Jeff - Imagine for a moment that you had quite a few unneeded addresses and the upheaval also meant no pesky policy constraints on your monetization efforts - would you then view it as having some benefit? You just might not have the right perspective to appreciate the potential up$ide... /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN
On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 2:37 PM, John Curran <jcurran@arin.net> wrote:
Imagine for a moment that you had quite a few unneeded addresses and the upheaval also meant no pesky policy constraints on your monetization efforts - would you then view it as having some benefit? You just might not have the right perspective to appreciate the potential up$ide...
In this view, then, the "benefit" of independent, fragmented WHOIS databases and API access to IN-ADDR DNS zones is that addresses could be traded outside of RIR policy. It seems to me that RIR policy would need to change to allow such third-party databases to publish delgation data to DNS/WHOIS. Since this is the case, end-user advocates of such system should simply argue in favor of eliminating any justification for transfer recipients. In this case, ARIN would naturally supply the same DNS and WHOIS service they do to allocation-holders today. I still see no tangible benefit to third-party DNS/WHOIS databases, except to the operators of those databases. The up$ide seems to be entirely in favor of new database operators, not existing stakeholders. -- Jeff S Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> Sr Network Operator / Innovative Network Concepts
John, Given ARIN's STLS, it would seem even ARIN has the 'right perspective' to see the "up$ide". It's more about the implication of folks having increasing financial incentive to go outside the existing mechanisms (e.g., Nortel/Microsoft) and the implications that has on network operations. Since it would seem we have an impedance mismatch on this topic, I'll not bore NANOG with further discussion. Regards, -drc On Apr 19, 2011, at 11:37 AM, John Curran wrote:
On Apr 19, 2011, at 1:19 PM, Jeff Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> wrote:
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how a bunch of different entities providing fragmented "post-allocation services" is of any benefit.
Jeff -
Imagine for a moment that you had quite a few unneeded addresses and the upheaval also meant no pesky policy constraints on your monetization efforts - would you then view it as having some benefit? You just might not have the right perspective to appreciate the potential up$ide...
/John
John Curran President and CEO ARIN
On Apr 19, 2011, at 4:45 PM, David Conrad wrote:
Given ARIN's STLS, it would seem even ARIN has the 'right perspective' to see the "up$ide".
To be clear, the listing service is simply so that those who want to be contacted because they need address space can identify themselves, along with those who might have some available, or parties that want to act as a broker. ARIN serves non of these roles, doesn't match up parties, and charges a minimal fee ($100) for those who wish to make use of it. Note that providing it for free would have put the cost burden unfairly on the rest of the ARIN community, so we charge. This doesn't compare in the least to parties that wish to introduce unspecified changes to the global Internet number registry system under the theory of unstated benefits for the community, while also serving to directly financially benefit. There may be nothing wrong with that, per se, but those in the community asking for the changes and perceived benefits to be more clearly stated are being quite reasonable under the circumstances. /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN
Jeff, On Apr 19, 2011, at 10:19 AM, Jeff Wheeler wrote:
Are you saying there are people who advocate creating a new ecosystem of service providers for supplying several things that the RIRs exclusively supply today?
Yes.
Sign me up. As a vendor. I'd love to over-charge for the dead simple task of using an API to push DNS delegation updates to the IN-ADDR servers, and running a whois server.
My guess is that lacking a monopoly, if you over-charge you won't have many customers.
If you really want WHOIS output with a common, unified structure, you can do that. Bulk access to RIR data is available today.
So your solution is for everyone interested in a common database structure to download the entirety of all the RIR databases and write code to convert the various (changing) formats into a 'common, unified structure'? In any event, such a use would appear to be in violation of ARIN's Bulk Whois AUP (According to http://www.icann.org/en/correspondence/curran-to-beckstrom-02mar11-en.pdf, ARIN denied bulk whois access for the stated use of "directory mirroring").
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how a bunch of different entities providing fragmented "post-allocation services" is of any benefit.
Some folks find competition in service providers beneficial. Regards, -drc
On Apr 19, 2011, at 2:56 PM, David Conrad wrote:
On Apr 19, 2011, at 10:19 AM, Jeff Wheeler wrote:
Are you saying there are people who advocate creating a new ecosystem of service providers for supplying several things that the RIRs exclusively supply today?
Yes.
Sign me up. As a vendor. I'd love to over-charge for the dead simple task of using an API to push DNS delegation updates to the IN-ADDR servers, and running a whois server.
My guess is that lacking a monopoly, if you over-charge you won't have many customers.
Meanwhile, under the current system, ARIN has managed to accumulate a >$25M cash reserve despite an increasing budget. (see https://www.arin.net/participate/meetings/reports/ARIN_XXVII/PDF/Wednesday/a...) Cheers, -Benson
On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 4:14 PM, Benson Schliesser <bensons@queuefull.net> wrote:
Meanwhile, under the current system, ARIN has managed to accumulate a >$25M cash reserve despite an increasing budget. (see https://www.arin.net/participate/meetings/reports/ARIN_XXVII/PDF/Wednesday/a...)
If you want ARIN to reduce its fees, you can propose that. The fiduciaries at ARIN may say, "you're right, we do have more money than we need or foresee to need to operate," and recommend that fees be reduced. They may provide justification for this "war chest," such as the possibility of legal battles over address transfers. Who knows? Is your problem that ARIN spends its money poorly? I believe it does in some ways, but the community generally does not care enough to try to improve this. I questioned ARIN's travel budget a few years ago and was essentially flamed for doing so. You seem to think the difference between ARIN's expenditures and revenues is too large, resulting in a large cash reserve. Okay, if that's important to you, there is a forum for that discussion. I don't think anything will be done about it through a discussion on NANOG, but you can certainly bring it up on the various ARIN mailing lists, or ask ARIN board/staff to share their thoughts with you. I really don't think the cost of ARIN fees for IP address and ASN allocations are all that important to ARIN members. In my position as a senior technical resource for numerous ARIN members, I am much more interested in ARIN providing more services to members, or improving upon existing ones (IRR), than I am in any reduction of fees. Again, my position is reflected clearly in my public mailing list posts on this subject. Note that one of the things I think ARIN should improve upon, which ARIN has committed to improve, is its IRR database. There are already alternatives available, I'm glad ARIN has decided to increase the usefulness and quality of its IRR database. If they don't, you can still choose to use a third-party database. I don't share your view that a fragmented WHOIS/DNS ecosystem would be all that beneficial to stakeholders. In the absence of ARIN members flocking to PPML to complain about ARIN's travel budget or its increasing cash reserve, I don't think ARIN members are particularly concerned about reducing ARIN's fees. -- Jeff S Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> Sr Network Operator / Innovative Network Concepts
On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 4:46 PM, Jeff Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 4:14 PM, Benson Schliesser <bensons@queuefull.net> wrote:
Meanwhile, under the current system, ARIN has managed to accumulate a >$25M cash reserve despite an increasing budget. (see https://www.arin.net/participate/meetings/reports/ARIN_XXVII/PDF/Wednesday/a...)
If you want ARIN to reduce its fees, you can propose that. The fiduciaries at ARIN may say, "you're right, we do have more money than we need or foresee to need to operate," and recommend that fees be reduced. They may provide justification for this "war chest," such as the possibility of legal battles over address transfers. Who knows?
Is your problem that ARIN spends its money poorly? I believe it does in some ways, but the community generally does not care enough to try to improve this. I questioned ARIN's travel budget a few years ago and was essentially flamed for doing so.
You seem to think the difference between ARIN's expenditures and revenues is too large, resulting in a large cash reserve. Okay, if that's important to you, there is a forum for that discussion. I don't think anything will be done about it through a discussion on NANOG, but you can certainly bring it up on the various ARIN mailing lists, or ask ARIN board/staff to share their thoughts with you.
I really don't think the cost of ARIN fees for IP address and ASN allocations are all that important to ARIN members. In my position as a senior technical resource for numerous ARIN members, I am much more interested in ARIN providing more services to members, or improving upon existing ones (IRR), than I am in any reduction of fees. Again, my position is reflected clearly in my public mailing list posts on this subject.
Note that one of the things I think ARIN should improve upon, which ARIN has committed to improve, is its IRR database. There are already alternatives available, I'm glad ARIN has decided to increase the usefulness and quality of its IRR database. If they don't, you can still choose to use a third-party database.
I don't share your view that a fragmented WHOIS/DNS ecosystem would be all that beneficial to stakeholders. In the absence of ARIN members flocking to PPML to complain about ARIN's travel budget or its increasing cash reserve, I don't think ARIN members are particularly concerned about reducing ARIN's fees.
-- Jeff S Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> Sr Network Operator / Innovative Network Concepts
I recall supporting your objective to ARIN's budget, to include travel and conventions. If memory serves, Mr. Curran simply stated that this is what the community wants and they see value in having ARIN travel all over the region. On the subject of an IPv4 market place, would it be feasible to suggest that ARIN allow pure market economy and then broker the deals, collecting a commission on sales rather than annual maintenance fees? -- Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team jeffrey.lyon@blacklotus.net | http://www.blacklotus.net Black Lotus Communications - AS32421 First and Leading in DDoS Protection Solutions
On Apr 19, 2011, at 3:46 PM, Jeff Wheeler wrote:
On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 4:14 PM, Benson Schliesser <bensons@queuefull.net> wrote:
Meanwhile, under the current system, ARIN has managed to accumulate a >$25M cash reserve despite an increasing budget. (see https://www.arin.net/participate/meetings/reports/ARIN_XXVII/PDF/Wednesday/a...) ... Is your problem that ARIN spends its money poorly? I believe it does in some ways, but the community generally does not care enough to try to improve this. I questioned ARIN's travel budget a few years ago and was essentially flamed for doing so.
I might agree that ARIN wastes money, but that wasn't my point. The context of my comment was your original message, which argued that a competitive registry system would enable vendors to "over-charge". Without defining what an optimal cost might be, my comment was intended to show that our current baseline already results in a surplus. And I agree with DRC's comment that competition might improve / optimize costs, rather than inflate them. Cheers, -Benson
On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 5:16 PM, Benson Schliesser <bensons@queuefull.net> wrote:
Without defining what an optimal cost might be, my comment was intended to show that our current baseline already results in a surplus.
I don't think the cost of IPv4 addresses has anywhere to go but up. This mysterious Nortel/Microsoft transaction would seem to give credibility to an assumption of increasing cost. Therefore, it stands to reason that the cost of "database services" associated with being a holder of IP addresses will be inconsequential. If I wanted to own www.abc.com, I could do that for a pretty low cost of < $20/year through the various dot-com registries. I am pretty sure ABC would not sell it to me for any price I could afford. Thus, the cost of that domain name lies not with the database services but with the unique string. If anyone thinks that won't be true for IP addresses, by all means, let that person propose to overhaul the IN-ADDR system and possibly the WHOIS database. I do not think stakeholders will agree with their views. IP addresses are finite, and the cost of acquiring them will, in all likelihood, dwarf the cost of publishing ownership/custodial information or operational DNS records. -- Jeff S Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> Sr Network Operator / Innovative Network Concepts
On Apr 19, 2011, at 4:26 PM, Jeff Wheeler wrote:
I don't think the cost of IPv4 addresses has anywhere to go but up. This mysterious Nortel/Microsoft transaction would seem to give credibility to an assumption of increasing cost.
I think we can agree on this. It is the natural result of exhaustion - scarce supply, ongoing demand. It is important to note, however, that this is orthogonal to the registry management structure; we could have increased IPv4 acquisition costs with ARIN, or increased IPv4 acquisition costs with somebody else.
Therefore, it stands to reason that the cost of "database services" associated with being a holder of IP addresses will be inconsequential. ... If anyone thinks that won't be true for IP addresses, by all means, let that person propose to overhaul the IN-ADDR system and possibly the WHOIS database. I do not think stakeholders will agree with their views. IP addresses are finite, and the cost of acquiring them will, in all likelihood, dwarf the cost of publishing ownership/custodial information or operational DNS records.
As I agreed above, acquisition costs will go up regardless. The real question is total cost, which is (basically) the acquisition price plus the ongoing registry maintenance costs. As one possibility, an overhaul might result in less expensive (or even "free") registry services being provided by brokers. Assuming market prices aren't affected by the overhaul, the total cost might thus be lower with a broker versus ARIN. Perhaps this is a small impact, but it's real. More importantly, an overhaul to the registry system that facilitates liquidity in the market may introduce additional benefits. (e.g. more predictable and/or lower acquisition costs) I'm not an economist and I'm open to contrary arguments, but I see potential upsides to an overhaul that don't exist with the status quo. Cheers, -Benson
On Apr 19, 2011, at 3:56 PM, David Conrad wrote:
On Apr 19, 2011, at 10:19 AM, Jeff Wheeler wrote:
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how a bunch of different entities providing fragmented "post-allocation services" is of any benefit.
Some folks find competition in service providers beneficial.
I agree that competition can be quite useful and the result doesn't necessarily have to be be fragmented; it's quite possible to provide transparent referrals to make the services appear as a consistent whole. This requires understanding where the competition is being introduced; is it a single registry and multiple registrars, or multiple registries and synchronization, or some other model? Is there an architecture for this future model, or perhaps even a starting set of goals to work towards agreement on? David - can you share more about what you believe is being proposed? /John
On Apr 18, 2011, at 3:57 PM, Scott Weeks wrote:
Has this been discussed here?
Not yet for this particular instance.
I did a quickie search and saw nothing. Other than spam to a technical mailing list, do you guys care, or is it a non-issue?
Unfortunately, it's an issue. It's a painfully obvious outcome of the laws of supply and demand and the inability of the RIRs to effectively evolve to meet the changing environment. As with any disruptive event (which the exhaustion of the IPv4 free pool clearly is), there will be a bit of chaos as things settle down into new patterns. On the positive side, I figure it means it will be more likely that allocated-but-unused IPv4 address space will be put back into play (since there is now a financial incentive to do so). An explicit cost for obtaining IPv4 should also help justify IPv6 deployment (since the (fixed) cost of IPv6 deployment will be able to be compared against the unpredictable but likely increasing cost of obtaining IPv4 addresses). Operationally, there are concerns, specifically how ISPs determine whether the addresses presented to them are owned by the presenter (if they care), but I understand that's already a problem (as demonstrated by Ron's postings). Interesting times. Regards, -drc
participants (11)
-
Benson Schliesser -
Chris Grundemann -
David Conrad -
Jeff Wheeler -
Jeffrey Lyon -
John Curran -
John Curran -
Owen DeLong -
Randy Bush -
Rubens Kuhl -
Scott Weeks