(and to answer Randy - the only control over the administration is based on the policies adopted. Reduce the corpus of applicable policy if that is your desire.)

we created careers for junior policiy weenies. arin and other rirs have become well-funded playgrounds for the semi-clued who think they can and should tell others how to run their businesses, operate the internet, .. tough to put that crap back in the bottle. makes one think that the itu may not actually be worse. randy

Yet most of the bad ideas in the past 15 years have actually come from the IETF (TLA's, no end site multihoming, RA religion), some of which have actually been "fixed" by the RIR's.

no, they were fixed within the ietf. that's my blood you are taking about, and i know where and by whom it was spent. the fracking rirs, in the name of marla and and lee, actually went to the ietf last month with a proposal to push address policy back to the ietf from the ops. and they just did not get thomas's proposal to move more policy from ietf back to ops. randy

-----Original Message----- From: Randy Bush [mailto:randy@psg.com] Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 10:13 PM To: Kevin Loch Cc: North American Network Operators Group Subject: Re: Lightly used IP addresses

...

the fracking rirs, in the name of marla and and lee, actually went to the ietf last month with a proposal to push address policy back to the ietf from the ops. and they just did not get thomas's proposal to move more policy from ietf back to ops.

You mischaracterize my position. Check the minutes when posted. Check the names on the draft.

and, to continue the red herring with jc, i bet you 500 yen that arin paid their travel expenses to go to maastricht nl to do this stupid thing.

You lose your bet. Lee

randy

On Aug 13, 2010, at 8:01 PM, Randy Bush wrote:

...

Yet most of the bad ideas in the past 15 years have actually come from the IETF (TLA's, no end site multihoming, RA religion), some of which have actually been "fixed" by the RIR's.

no, they were fixed within the ietf. that's my blood you are taking about, and i know where and by whom it was spent.

I'm not sure what is meant by TLAs in this context, so, I'll leave that alone. The lack of end-site multihoming (more specifically the lack of PI for end-sites) was created by the IETF and resolved by the RIRs. The beginning of resolving this was ARIN proposal 2002-3. The RA religion still hasn't been solved. Owen

I think you mistake my meaning. I don't regard RA and SLAAC as a problem. I regard their limited capabilities as a minor issue. I regard the IETF religion that insists on preventing DHCPv6 from having a complete set of capabilities for some form of RA protectionism to be the largest problem. That was my meaning for RA religion. Owen Sent from my iPad On Aug 14, 2010, at 10:30 AM, Joel Jaeggli <joelja@bogus.com> wrote:

On Aug 14, 2010, at 8:05, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

...

On Aug 13, 2010, at 8:01 PM, Randy Bush wrote:

The lack of end-site multihoming (more specifically the lack of PI for end-sites) was created by the IETF and resolved by the RIRs. The beginning of resolving this was ARIN proposal 2002-3.

The RA religion still hasn't been solved.

Neither for that matter has the dhcp religion. Autoconfiguration and bootstrapping were not solved problems for ipv4 inn 1994 and in some respects still aren't. The mind boggles that we consider the ipv4 situation so much better than the v6 case...

...

Owen

John - you do not get it... First of all, I don't want your organization to have ANY policy at all. Being just a title company for IP blocks is well and good - and can be easily done at maybe 1% of your budget. Title companies do not tell people if they can buy or sell, they just record the current ownership. They do not create controversy or conflict - in fact, their sole reason for existence is to reduce expenses involved in figuring out who has rights to what. Secondly, if you have delusion that you somehow represent me (or other Internet users), get rid of that delusion. Simply because you don't. I didn't vote for you, and gave your organization no right to claim to have my consent - individually or collectively. I'm not bound by any of your policies, and, as a matter of fact, I have no say in them (and do not have a wish to participate). Writing a petition to have a policy changed is something a serf does towards his lord, so I'll spare you the embarrassment of reading what I have to say to anybody suggesting this to me. ARIN as a policy-making body exists solely due to cluelessness of telco management. If the execs had any clue, they'd realize that there is NO such thing as owning a block of IP addresses - the real object is the contractual right to send packets to that address block over their networks. Because their customers generally want universal connectivity, they are forced to cooperate with each other - but, as everybody in this age of NATs, firewalls, and Great Walls knows, universal connectivity is just a myth. Coverage in connectivity can (and should) be a competitive discriminator, rather than absolutist one-size-fits-all regulatory pipe dream. What they have done is gave control over this right to a third party for no good reason whatsoever. (Yes, Randy, it did seem like a good idea - but, just like any other idea involving giving some people policy-making powers, - it was bound to go sour and start serving interests of these people rather than the interests of subjects of their rule-making). ISPs can increase their revenues by selling this right rather than _paying_ to ARIN for being able to exercise this right. All it takes is a bunch of reciprocity agreements saying, essentially, "we'll carry yours if you carry ours". As soon as one large ISP figures that out, this particular political house of cards will go down, quickly. With due respect, --vadim John Curran wrote:

On Aug 13, 2010, at 4:35 PM, Randy Bush wrote:

...

...

How come ARIN has any say at all if A wants to sell and B wants to buy? Trying to fend off the imaginary monopolistic hobgoblin?

self-justification for arin's existence, flying people around to lotso meetings, fancy hotels, ...

at the rirs, income and control are more important than the health and growth of the internet. basically, the rirs are another case of seemed like a good idea at the time.

Vadim - We'll run the database anyway you (collectively) want us to... what policy would you prefer, and can you submit it as a proposal?

(and to answer Randy - the only control over the administration is based on the policies adopted. Reduce the corpus of applicable policy if that is your desire.)

/John

John Curran President and CEO ARIN

...

First of all, I don't want your organization to have ANY policy at all. Where'd you get your AS number, again?

sri

On Aug 13, 2010, at 6:33 PM, Vadim Antonov wrote:

John - you do not get it...

First of all, I don't want your organization to have ANY policy at all.

Unfortunately, Vadim, even "No Policy" *is* a policy.

Being just a title company for IP blocks is well and good - and can be easily done at maybe 1% of your budget. Title companies do not tell people if they can buy or sell, they just record the current ownership. They do not create controversy or conflict - in fact, their sole reason for existence is to reduce expenses involved in figuring out who has rights to what.

ARIN (and the other RIRs) performs address allocation, registration services, and membership services. One of the great questions we all face is how much real number resource policy development will be needed when you look out 5 to 10 years, in an environment when there's not any free pool allocations being made for IPv4, and most organizations have their initial IPv6 allocation. Is there really a need for twice annual RIR policy meetings and extensive IPv6 awareness outreach work? If those activities are reduced, and the role of an RIR becomes that of a title registry, there's no doubt that it can be done with a smaller organization. Note - you still need to decide where base registry policy happens (e.g. WHOIS publication/privacy, lawful cooperation, etc.) but this doesn't need to be in ARIN and could be left to your choice of some other association and/or determined by each local government).

ARIN as a policy-making body exists solely due to cluelessness of telco management. If the execs had any clue, they'd realize that there is NO such thing as owning a block of IP addresses - the real object is the contractual right to send packets to that address block over their networks.

In general, telecommunications companies do assert that IP addresses are provided as a component of service and that there is no ownership right therein. This is fairly common in most contracts for ISP services.

ISPs can increase their revenues by selling this right rather than _paying_ to ARIN for being able to exercise this right. All it takes is a bunch of reciprocity agreements saying, essentially, "we'll carry yours if you carry ours". As soon as one large ISP figures that out, this particular political house of cards will go down, quickly.

ISPs are already bundling this right (to use IP addresses) into their service contracts. I agree 100% that it would not be difficult at all for them to self-assert the IP addresses that they'll be using to one another (particularly post free pool depletion w.r.t IPv4) and have no need for an Internet Registry system. If that's how the community wants to do it and the result provides for effective management of the address space, then I think that's a great outcome: i.e. as always, there's no reason for ARIN to exist unless it serves a useful role to the community. For the present, the administration of the current needs-based allocation policy, the policy development process, and online automation work doesn't seem happen without a regional registry and involved community to drive it.

With due respect,

Noted. /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN

On Aug 13, 2010, at 10:55 PM, Randy Bush wrote:

... if the iana could get out from under lawyers and domainer greed, and go back to simply being bookkeeper for the internet, they could do the automated solution today. well, with some months of setup. and we could get rid of 95% of the costs the rirs are sucking from our thinning bloodstreams. or a gutsy rir could lead the way. fat chance.

If the allocation and reassignment of address space has no policy associated with it, then there's no doubt that most of the registry functions can be automated, and there's no need for the associated policy development process, public policy meetings, travel, conference calls. Quite a bit of savings available there, but the community first has to decide on permanent policy (or lack thereof :-) for that automated world before we can reap the savings. /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN

On Aug 13, 2010, at 11:32 PM, Randy Bush wrote:

...

If the allocation and reassignment of address space has no policy associated with it, then there's no doubt that most of the registry functions can be automated, and there's no need for the associated policy development process, public policy meetings, travel, conference calls. Quite a bit of savings available there, but the community first has to decide on permanent policy (or lack thereof :-) for that automated world before we can reap the savings.

when the 'community' is defined as those policy wannabes who do the flying, take the cruise junkets, ... this is a self-perpetuating steaming load that is not gonna change.

In theory, it's quite realistic to see it changing for IPv6 over time, since there is remarkable abundance even just the existing allocations made to date; we've no doubt already issues more IPv6 space that the entire Internet will need, and the only reason that an organization gets space from an RIR is the implication that such space will be routable. If ISPs were to hypothetically charge for use of a non-provider issues prefix and figure out a way to settle up for the routing impact, then there is already plenty of IPv6 space issued today, and one could seek an allocation from nearly anyone and know the cost for it be useable. Getting started via IPv6 would probably be easier than IPv4, but once running if shouldn't be too hard to make work for both. You can then completely eliminate routing driven constraints from the system, and get very close to vending machine with a pull handle for getting more addresses...

one start would be for arin to have the guts not to pay travel expenses of non-employees/contractors.

ARIN Suggestion process: <https://www.arin.net/participate/acsp/index.html> If you submit it, I will bring it to the Board for consideration. In fairness, I will tell you that I'll also recommend to the that we continue to pay for the travel for the Advisory Council, unless and until there is no need for a policy development process. /John

On Aug 14, 2010, at 12:17 AM, Randy Bush wrote:

thanks for reaffirming that talking to arin is a waste of time.

If you're going to recommend that we not pay for travel for the ARIN AC, I'm going to recommend otherwise and point out that the AC members need to hear from the community, and that's often in person and at the joint ARIN/NANOG meetings, etc. I can't speak to the strength of your arguments for eliminating travel, but I will carry them to the Board as well, if you use the suggestion process. /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN

On Aug 14, 2010, at 12:32 AM, Jeffrey Lyon wrote:

John,

I will concur with Randy that much of the travel that ARIN funds is excessive. ARIN has a booth at trade shows so i'm going to guess that entire setup with travel costs about $20,000 - 50,000 per show. Why? To convince me to use ARIN for my IP space needs? To convince us to switch to IPv6? I'm not really understanding this, ARIN can hear from the community for free and without spending tens of thousands of dollars.

Why can't we save that money and use it to provide tangible services, like providing advisory and implementation assistance for companies wanting to convert to IPv6? We could use it to fund investigations targeting IP space abuse (see my previous post a few minutes back).

This year ARIN has undertaken a major initiative in outreach specifically regarding IPv6, and this includes time of several ARIN staff, trade show participation, travel for volunteers from the AC or Board, PR firm, etc. I'd estimate this additional initiative to be near $500,000 in expense within ARIN's $15M/year budget. The goal is to get the message about impending IPv4 depletion and IPv6 transition out to more organizations in the region. One side effect of this is that hopefully you're seeing the IPv6 issue appearing quite a bit more in both trade and business press. While we may think that the IPv4/IPv6 situation is common knowledge, we are running into ISPs and hosting companies each day that believe we've got enough IPv4 addresses for many decades to come. Now, we're doing this because we've had people at the microphones at nearly every ARIN public meeting asking us to do more to increase the visibility of IPv4 depletion and IPv6, so this is definitely something that should get some more discussion at the next ARIN meeting if you feel otherwise. /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN p.s. Ongoing threads on ARIN financials should probably move over to ARIN-discuss sooner or later (out of respect to those on Nanog who didn't think they signed up for that on this operational list...)

Funny! On one hand people talk about ARIN providing IP allocation at nearly zero cost and on the other hand talking that ARIN goes after companies that use their allocation for abuse (which has a non trivial cost and potential expensive lawsuits)... Do you know what you want?

On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 08:40:28AM -0700, Owen DeLong wrote:

On Aug 13, 2010, at 9:33 PM, Franck Martin wrote:

...

Funny!

On one hand people talk about ARIN providing IP allocation at nearly zero cost and on the other hand talking that ARIN goes after companies that use their allocation for abuse (which has a non trivial cost and potential expensive lawsuits)...

Do you know what you want?

Let's clarify the definition of abuse in this context. We are not talking about people who use their IPs to abuse the network. We are talking about resource recipients who use their allocations or assignments in contravention to the policies under which they received them (and thus contrary to the RSA which they signed when they received them).

Owen

In the formal ARIN context, there is a distiction between abuse and fraud. abuse:: https://www.arin.net/abuse.html fraud:: https://www.arin.net/resources/fraud/index.html It would be helpful in clarifing the discussion if folks used the proper terminology. --bill

On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 12:32:50PM -0700, David Conrad wrote:

Bill,

On Aug 14, 2010, at 8:51 AM, bmanning@vacation.karoshi.com wrote:

...

In the formal ARIN context, there is a distiction between abuse and fraud.

abuse:: https://www.arin.net/abuse.html

This is a FAQ for folks who are accusing ARIN of abuse of network. With the possible exception of the last item in that FQA, it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

...

fraud:: https://www.arin.net/resources/fraud/index.html

This is the mechanism by which one reports fraud.

...

It would be helpful in clarifing the discussion if folks used the proper terminology.

Can you point to where ARIN defines exactly what they consider "abuse" and/or "fraud"?

Thanks, -drc

The AC accepted draft proposal below has a definition of abuse in #b ---- Draft Policy 2010-11 Required Resource Reviews Version/Date: 20 July 2010 Policy statement: Replace the text "under sections 4-6" in section 12, paragraph 7 with "under paragraphs 12.4 through 12.6" Add to section 12 the following text: 10. Except as provided below, resource reviews are conducted at the discretion of the ARIN staff. In any of the circumstances mentioned below, a resource review must be initiated by ARIN staff: a. Report or discovery of an acquisition, merger, transfer, trade or sale in which the infrastructure and customer base of a network move from one organization to another organization, but, the applicable IP resources are not transferred. In this case, the organization retaining the IP resources must be reviewed. The organization receiving the customers may also be reviewed at the discretion of the ARIN staff. b. Upon receipt by ARIN of one or more credible reports of fraud or abuse of an IP address block. Abuse shall be defined as use of the block in violation of the RSA or other ARIN policies and shall not extend to include general reports of host conduct which are not within ARIN's scope. While fraud is outlined here: https://www.arin.net/resources/fraud/index.html Version 1.2 - 18 November 2009 This reporting process is to be used to notify ARIN of suspected Internet number resource abuse including the submission of falsified utilization or organization information, unauthorized changes to data in ARIN's WHOIS, hijacking of number resources in ARIN's database, or fraudulent transfers. This reporting process is NOT for reporting illegal or fraudulent Internet activity like network abuse, phishing, spam, identity theft, hacking, scams, or any other activity unrelated to the scope of ARIN's mission. ---- so fraud, from ARINs perspective seems to be: - submitting falsified untilization or org info - unauthorized changes to the data in ARINs whois - hijacking number resources in ARINs database - fraudulent transfers a kewpie doll for the first one to point out the circular dependencies! :) --bill

On Aug 15, 2010, at 1:20 AM, David Conrad wrote:

It has been depressing to watch participants in ARIN (in particular) suggest all will be well if people would just sign away their rights via an LRSA, ...

Actually, you've got it backwards. The Legacy RSA provides specific contractual rights which take precedence over present policy or any policy that might be made which would otherwise limit such rights: "In the event of any inconsistency between the Policies and this Legacy Agreement, the terms of this Legacy Agreement will prevail, including but not limited to those Policies adopted after this Legacy Agreement is executed." Without signing an LRSA, it's just status quo, which is also seems to fine option at present for those who like things they way they are. The specific LRSA right that most folks are interested in include: "ARIN will take no action to reduce the services provided for Included Number Resources that are not currently being utilized by the Legacy Applicant.", and additional the $100 annual fee, and with an annual cap on any increases. The Legacy RSA is a voluntary way for legacy block holders to have certainty regarding the registry services including WHOIS, in-addr, etc. It's entirely voluntary, for those who prefer to have contractual rights for an otherwise uncertain situation.

Pragmatically speaking, it seems the most likely to be successful way of maintaining stability with the impending resource exhaustion state is to give up pretenses of being regulatory agency and concentrate on the role of being a titles registry.

Focusing on becoming a title registry is easily done if the community adopts policy to such effect, but it is an exercise to reader whether that increases or decreases stability depending on the exact policies. The specified transfer policy that developed by the community allows those who needs addresses to receive them from anyone holding them, and keeps ARIN out of the financials of the transaction and focused on recording it. Yes, we do require that the resources first be under RSA/LRSA, because we research each legacy block through that process to make sure we're not otherwise recording a hijacked address block as valid. Pragmatically speaking, I would note that such validation is nearly the textbook role for a "title" registry, and attempts to record transfers without first doing the historical scrub will nearly guarantee instability. (Followups for this really should be to PPML.) /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN

On Aug 15, 2010, at 6:06 AM, Randy Bush wrote:

...

Actually, you've got it backwards. The Legacy RSA provides specific contractual rights which take precedence over present policy or any policy that might be made which would otherwise limit such rights:

gosh, i must have completely misread section nine

Seeking contractual rights contrary to IETF RFCs 2008 and 2150?

as we say in our family, i smell cows.

No comment. /John

...

gosh, i must have completely misread section nine Seeking contractual rights contrary to IETF RFCs 2008 and 2150?

oh, and if you feel that you have those rights by other means than the lrsa, then why is section nine in the lrsa. just remove it. and then maybe more than a few percent of the legacy holders might actually be interested. your lawyer is gonna kill you. randy

>>>> gosh, i must have completely misread section nine
>>> Seeking contractual rights contrary to IETF RFCs 2008 and 2150?
>> oh, and if you feel that you have those rights by other means than the
>> lrsa, then why is section nine in the lrsa.  just remove it. 
> Easy to do, you can either: 
> 1) Change the appropriate policy language (NRPM 6.4.1) via the ARIN policy 
>    development process, in which case the LRSA will be updated as noted, or 
> 2) If you feel that you'd prefer a different forum, you can address this on a  
>    more global basis (since each RIR has similar language regarding addresses) 
>    by going through the IETF and revising the RFCs, which will likely result 
>    in the RIRs all reviewing their documents accordingly.

oh.  was section nine of the lrsa done by the policy process?

please stop using the community consensus meme to cover for what you,
your lawyer, and your board came up with in a back room.

> p.s. If you want to continue to discuss, can we shortly move this to
> PPML 

no thanks.  

randy

On Aug 15, 2010, at 7:28 AM, Randy Bush wrote:

oh. was section nine of the lrsa done by the policy process?

No, although it's been presented at multiple Public Policy and Member meetings, and has enjoying extensive discussion on the mailing lists. (It's been extensively revised based on the feedback received - see http://www.mail-archive.com/arin-announce@arin.net/msg00105.html) (later followup from Randy - consolidated response)

the fact is that the lrsa does require the legacy holder to sign away rights. and if you assert that they have no special/different rights, then why is that clause there?

Section 9 is present in the LRSA because it matches the RSA (so that all address holders are the same basic terms to the extent practical) As noted earlier, the LRSA provides specific contractual rights including precluding ARIN from reducing the services provided for legacy address space, but a legacy holder trying to theorize property rights is working under a set of assumptions likely incompatible with ARIN's mission and articles of incorporation that call for actual management and stewardship of Internet number resources. As noted, the other RIRs have similar language, as do the IETF BCP RFCs in this space. The earlier you go back, the clearer intent of the community on this point, as were Jon's actions as the IANA. While this may not be convenient for folks today who wish otherwise, it does not change reality. I've suggested the RIR processes or the IETF as a way of bringing about the change you want based on community consensus (this is the Internet style of addressing it); feel free to add your choice of multinational organizations or governments if you want to more choices with different decision processes. /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN

...

p.s. If you want to continue to discuss, can we shortly move this to PPML

no thanks.

p.p.s. My apologies to the list (for my having to respond to direct queries and thus continue the thread here)

Sent from my iPad On Aug 15, 2010, at 8:54 AM, Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:

...

...

oh. was section nine of the lrsa done by the policy process? No

so, if we think it should be changed we should go through a process which was not used to put it in place. can you even say "level playing field?"

...

Section 9 is present in the LRSA because it matches the RSA (so that all address holders are the same basic terms to the extent practical)

so, on the one hand, you claim legacy holders have no property rights. yet you ask they sign an lrsa wherein they relinquish the rights you say they don't have.

A contract which clarifies that you still don't have rights you never had does not constitute relinquishing those non-existent rights no matter how many times you repeat yourself.

amazing. i wonder if that could be construed as an acknowledgement that they actually have those rights.

when did the lawyers and the twisty mentality get control?

randy, heading for sleep

--

p.s. apologies to folk for any suggestion they might have to dirty themselves by joining the ppml list

for the embarrassing wannabe example of the month, marla and lee [0] at the last ietf is just such a shining example. at the mic, they state are from the arin ac and board, like it was their day job and they were speaking fo rarin ploicy. and they propose to roll back a decade of progress getting operatonal policy the <bleep> out of the ietf. and they don't even understand why they got jumped or why thomas's preso was in the opposite direction and was widely supported. the arin ceo's response to my suggestion that this be curtailed?

If you submit it, I will bring it to the Board for consideration. In fairness, I will tell you that I'll also recommend to the that we continue to pay for the travel for the Advisory Council, unless and until there is no need for a policy development process.

or ask a grown-up who has the stomach to read the arin ppml list (i could only stomach it so long, and pulled). it is an embarrassment to the internet. randy -- [0] - sweet, well-meaning folk

Sent from my iPad On Aug 15, 2010, at 2:38 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike@swm.pp.se> wrote:

On Sat, 14 Aug 2010, Chris Grundemann wrote:

...

I highly encourage everyone who has an opinion on Internet numbering policy to do the same.

The same goes for IETF and standards, there one doesn't have to go to meetings at all since most work is being done on/via mailing lists openly.

Most of the policy work in ARIN is done openly on PPML. However, the meetings (which can be attended remotely) are also quite useful, much as with IETF. Owen

On Aug 14, 2010, at 11:30 PM, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:

Question: Why does it cost $11 million or more per year (going to some $22 million per year after 2013) to run a couple of databases that are Internet-accessible?

Patrick - If this is a reference to ARIN, the budget is approximately $15M annually, and is not substantially changing any faster than expected for normal cost-of-living trends (If $22M is a reference to having both IPv4 and IPv6 fees, ARIN charges each organization only once for the larger of IPv4 or IPv6 registration services fee it makes use of) Even so, it's a fair question to ask why it costs $15M annual to run ARIN. That includes the costs for many tasks which might not be obvious, including running the legacy registry system (which handles SWIP email templates), the new ARIN Online system (which is quite a bit more elegant), the public WHOIS servers, bulk WHOIS and FTP services, IN-ADDR services, the public web sites, the polling & election systems, the billing/invoicing systems, and the staging, development/QA support for same, and the normal office infrastructure for things like email, mailing lists, replication, business record keeping, and archival. There's some engineering staff to keep all that running, registration services staff to handle incoming requests, member services for running the meetings, elections, and policy process, and outreach thats already been mentioned with respect to trade shows and press, but also includes engagement with our friends at the ITU, international bodies, and governments. The full budget is available in each year's annual report along with the audited financials, and can be found here: https://www.arin.net/about_us/corp_docs/annual_rprt.html Clearly, the budget can be increased or decreased based on the services desired by the community, and this typically discussed on the last day of the ARIN Public Policy & Member meeting (twice yearly) during the Financial Services report. In between meetings, this topic is probably best suited for the arin-discuss mailing list as opposed to the nanog list. FYI, /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN

Sent from my iPad On Aug 15, 2010, at 11:14 AM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote:

On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 12:23 AM, John Curran <jcurran@arin.net> wrote:

...

https://www.arin.net/about_us/corp_docs/annual_rprt.html In between meetings, this topic is probably best suited for the arin-discuss mailing list as opposed to the nanog list.

John,

Is arin-discuss still a closed members-only list? I pay ARIN every year for my AS# registration but the last time I asked to join arin-discuss, I was refused because I wasn't a LIR, thus not a member.

Please: don't ask folks to take discussions of public concern to a closed forum.

ARIN fees and budget are a member concern, not a public concern. Non-LIR resource holders can become members for $500 per year.

On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 5:53 AM, John Curran <jcurran@arin.net> wrote:

...

On Aug 15, 2010, at 1:20 AM, David Conrad wrote:

...

It has been depressing to watch participants in ARIN (in particular) suggest all will be well if people would just sign away their rights via an LRSA,

Actually, you've got it backwards. The Legacy RSA provides specific contractual rights which take precedence over present policy or any policy that might be made which would otherwise limit such rights:

A strict (albeit ridiculous) reading of the LRSA says that if I bit-torrent some music using my LRSA-covered IP addresses and lose in court (4.d.ii) ARIN can terminate the contract (14.b.i) and revoke the numbers (14.e.i). In fact, any way I run afoul of ARIN's ever changing policies (15.d) leads to 14.b and 14.e.1. Not that ARIN would, of course, but the contract gives them the power.

https://www.arin.net/resources/agreements/legacy_rsa.pdf

Absent the LRSA, the status quo leaves ARIN unable to revoke and reassign legacy IP addresses without placing itself at major risk, requiring a litigious rather than contractual resolution to exactly what rights ARIN and the legacy registrants have. My defacto rights are less certain but rather more extensive than what the LRSA offers.

You and Randy operate from the assumption that these less certain rights somehow exist at all. I believe them to be fictitious in nature and contrary to the intent of number stewardship all the way back to Postel's original notebook. Postel himself is on record stating that disused addresses should be returned.

On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 7:34 AM, Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:

...

the fact is that the lrsa does require the legacy holder to sign away rights. and if you assert that they have no special/different rights, then why is [section 9] there?

Because that's intended to be part of the price, Randy. In exchange for gaining enforceable rights with respect to ARIN's provision of services, you quit any claim to your legacy addresses as property, just like with all the addresses allocated in the last decade and a half. The other part of the price was supposed to be the $100 annual fee.

I would say you acknowledge the lack of such a claim in the first place rather than quit claim. Thus you are not giving up anything and the only actual price is $100 per year with very limited possible increases over future years.

Unfortunately, the LRSA contains another price which I personally consider too high: voluntary termination revokes the IP addresses instead of restoring the pre-contract status quo. Without that balancing check to the contract, I think a steady creep in what ARIN requires of the signatory is inevitable... and the affirmative actions ARIN can require the registrant to perform in order to maintain the contract are nearly unlimited.

I believe the LRSA limits them primarily to the annual fee payment. It's actually written to make it pretty hard, if not impossible, for policy changes to affect signatories in such a way. Arguably, non-signatories have exactly the same set of rights as RSA signatories, while LRSA signatories enjoy significant additional rights. Any belief that non-signatories enjoy rights not present in the RSA is speculative at best. Owen

Regards, Bill Herrin

-- William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

In other words, if the ARIN board adopts a policy that legacy registrants must install some of their addresses on a router on the moon (or perhaps some requirement that's a little less extreme) then failing to is cause for terminating the contract (14.b). Which revokes the IP addresses (14.e.i).

Why be less extreme? I would rather see moon-routers! NANO's are encouraged to provide the datasheets for the Cisco 6509's solar-power module and wideband laser signaling SFPs. Best Regards, Nathan Eisenberg

Also, your emphasis above ("_that are not currently being utilized_"), pointed our we need to clarify that it should include "all resources, including those not currently being utilized", i.e. the phrase wasn't intended to exclude *utilized* resources from "ARIN will take no action" clause. I will have that fixed on the next version of the LRSA.

but john, should you not run the change through the policy process? randy

john, the bottom line is, changes you like and can justify to yourself with lots of glib words can be made without process. changes you don't like have to go through the policy gauntlet. randy

...

the bottom line is, changes you like and can justify to yourself with lots of glib words can be made without process. changes you don't like have to go through the policy gauntlet. ... Changes to ARIN's fees, services, and agreements are done after consultation to the ARIN Board, and often go through the ACSP consultation process or are discussed at one of the meetings. Suggestions are also welcomed as per above, just as I asked Mr. Herrin to do earlier regarding the LRSA.

as a reader of this thread with any memory can clearly see, when i asked about a change to the lrsa (with which you clearly disagree), i was told to submit a suggestion and to go through the policy process. when you want a change to the same agreement, whammy, it can magically be done with a quick internal process. qed. randy

On Aug 15, 2010, at 9:20 AM, William Herrin wrote:

On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 11:44 AM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

...

ARIN fees and budget are a member concern, not a public concern.

Oh really? The money ARIN spends managing the public's IP addresses (and how it collects that money and the privileges conferred on the folks from whom it's collected) are not a matter of public concern?

I seem to recall that attitude was how ICANN first started to get in to trouble.

As I said, they are a matter of member concern. To the best of my knowledge, ICANN membership is not open. If you care about how ARIN spends its money, become a member, speak up, and vote. Membership is open to all and voting membership is open to all resource holders.

...

...

Unfortunately, the LRSA contains another price which I personally consider too high: voluntary termination revokes the IP addresses instead of restoring the pre-contract status quo. Without that balancing check to the contract, I think a steady creep in what ARIN requires of the signatory is inevitable... and the affirmative actions ARIN can require the registrant to perform in order to maintain the contract are nearly unlimited.

I believe the LRSA limits them primarily to the annual fee payment.

Do you now. Unfortunately, the plain language of the LRSA does not respect your belief.

ARIN makes only two promises about the application of existing and new ARIN policies to LRSA signatories: "ARIN will take no action to reduce the services provided for Included Number Resources _that are not currently being utilized_ by the Legacy Applicant." (10.b) and "fee shall be $100 per year until the year 2013; no increase per year greater than $25." (6.b)

Except for those exclusions, the LRSA includes "the Policies which are hereby incorporated by reference" (15.d). Those policies are "binding upon Legacy Applicant immediately after they are posted on the Website" (7).

In other words, if the ARIN board adopts a policy that legacy registrants must install some of their addresses on a router on the moon (or perhaps some requirement that's a little less extreme) then failing to is cause for terminating the contract (14.b). Which revokes the IP addresses (14.e.i).

I think that is a rather bizarre and extreme construction of excerpts of the contract language. More rational construction would lead one to believe that the stated intent is to limit ARIN's ability to raise fees and prevent the revocation of legacy addresses absent a failure to pay fees. The policies incorporated by reference are the same policies which affect every other address holder, so ARIN would have a hard time requiring legacy holders to address devices on the moon without requiring the same thing from all other resource holders. Owen

On Aug 15, 2010, at 11:31 PM, Jeffrey Lyon wrote:

Would the policy process be an appropriate venue for a proposition to change the ARIN mission, restricting it's activities exclusively to registration services while requiring a reduction in fees and budget?

Jeffrey - Some historical perspective: ARIN not raised fees to my knowledge, but has actually lowered them 4 or 5 times over its 12 year history. ARIN's mission is set by the Board of Trustees, and lies within the purposes of the articles of incorporation of ARIN. I'll note that the articles encompass remarkable breadth, so the setting the mission turns out to be fairly important to keep ARIN focused appropriately. We have added initiatives in the past (e.g. this years extensive education and outreach regarding IPv4/IPv6) based on input received (predominantly at the Public Policy and Members meeting) and can remove them just as easily, but setting mission does not lie per se within the Policy process; it is a Board function to review and update the mission periodically. (Two minor notes: if you want an *ongoing* restraint on mission scope, it would really need be placed by the Board into the Bylaws with an significant hurdle precluding future revision, and should have some specificity, e.g. "exclusively registration services" could easily be read as either including or excluding abuse/fraud investigation, depending on the particular reader's inclination) /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN

[attribution removed, as I lost track of who said what]

...

Do you now. Unfortunately, the plain language of the LRSA does not respect your belief.

ARIN makes only two promises about the application of existing and new ARIN policies to LRSA signatories: "ARIN will take no action to reduce the services provided for Included Number Resources _that are not currently being utilized_ by the Legacy Applicant." (10.b) and "fee shall be $100 per year until the year 2013; no increase per year greater than $25." (6.b)

Except for those exclusions, the LRSA includes "the Policies which are hereby incorporated by reference" (15.d). Those policies are "binding upon Legacy Applicant immediately after they are posted on the Website" (7).

In other words, if the ARIN board adopts a policy that legacy registrants must install some of their addresses on a router on the moon (or perhaps some requirement that's a little less extreme) then failing to is cause for terminating the contract (14.b). Which revokes the IP addresses (14.e.i).

I think that is a rather bizarre and extreme construction of excerpts of the contract language. More rational construction would lead one to believe that the stated intent is to limit ARIN's ability to raise fees and prevent the revocation of legacy addresses absent a failure to pay fees.

You could think this 'bizarre', and you might be right. I read it, however, and was convinced - at least to the point where I would advise a client not to sign such an agreement without additional research. Ritual disclaimer - IAAL, but not a very good one, and this isn't legal advice, and, if you take legal advice from a stranger's internet postings, you have bigger problems than ARIN can throw at you. :-) -- _________________________________________ Nachman Yaakov Ziskind, FSPA, LLM awacs@ziskind.us Attorney and Counselor-at-Law http://ziskind.us Economic Group Pension Services http://egps.com Actuaries and Employee Benefit Consultants

On Aug 16, 2010, at 1:44 AM, William Herrin wrote:

... The retort you want to make is that ARIN just wouldn't do that. That's not the kind of people they are. Fine. So update the LRSA so it doesn't carefully and pervasively establish ARIN's legal right to behave that way.

Bill - Divide and conquer... I will confirm with the Board that that is the intent of the LRSA (which would then allow us to initiate the task of changing the language accordingly); can you submit this as a suggestion so that this request is not accidentally lost or overlooked? Thanks! /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN

On Aug 16, 2010, at 8:04 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:

John/Steve,

Just me (we don't pay Steve to read Nanog, although I do forward him legalistic emails depending on content :-)

Bill makes a reasonable point here. Is there a way to, in the next round of LRSA mods, include something to the effect of:

Under the ARIN Policy Development Process, the board will not ratify any policy which exclusively affects LRSA signatories in a manner inconsistent with its effect on other resource holders.

===

That's probably not ideal wording, but, I hope it conveys the general idea and I hope smarter people can find better language. It does seem to me to be a reasonable request and consistent with the intent of the LRSA.

If you prefer that I submit this via ACSP I will do so. However, it seems to me it could fall within the same scope as the other clarification John offered earlier.

I'll run with it, but would ask you send in to the suggestion process so that it doesn't get lost given our level of activity nowadays. Thanks! /John John Curran President and CEO ARIN

On Aug 15, 2010, at 11:08 AM, Brett Frankenberger wrote:

On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 11:44:18AM -0400, Owen DeLong wrote:

...

You and Randy operate from the assumption that these less certain rights somehow exist at all. I believe them to be fictitious in nature and contrary to the intent of number stewardship all the way back to Postel's original notebook. Postel himself is on record stating that disused addresses should be returned.

A non-trivial number of people likely believe they have property rights in their legacy address space (or, more precisely, in the entry in the ARIN database that corresponds to their legacy address space) and that those property rights are much more extensive than the rights they have under the LRSA.

Once upon a time, a non-trivial number of people believed in a set of $DIETIES we now refer to as greco-roman mythology. That doesn't make those beliefs any more or less correct than the ones who believe in these mystic undocumented property rights.

John points out that the LRSA gives legacy address holders a degree of certainty that they don't otherwise have. That's almost certainly true; I doubt any legancy address holders are in possession of legal advice to the effect of "you absolutely have property rights in that allocation; there's absoutely no chance you'd lose should you attempt to assert those rights in court". (On the other hand, no one really knows that ARIN has the authority to make the guarantees it's making under the LRSA. The LRSA only binds ARIN ... there's nothing to say the us Government won't step in an and assert its own authority over legacy space. So, while the LRSA confers a degree of certainty, it doesn't confer absolute certainty, or anything close to it.)

Since the only assurances the LRSA offers are with regard to what ARIN will or won't do, I would say that ARIN is in a perfectly good position to make those assurances.

But John doesn't seem to want to acknowledge, at least directly, the possibility that that thsoe property rights might be reasonably believed by some to exist. I suspect some entities are in possession of legal advice to the effect of "you probably have property rights and probably can do whatever you want with your space and probably get court orders as needed to force ARIN to respond accordingly". If one has gotten such advice from one's lawyers, and one has discussed with those lawyers just how probable "probably" is, it might well be that signing the LRSA is legitimately perceived as giving up rights.

Whether or not such belief is reasonable (I'm not inclined that it is as I have seen not one single document that conveys any form of property rights and the concept of owning integers seems utterly bizarre to me) I will leave to the psychologists and psychiatrists to determine. I acknowledge that some people believe this. I believe they are mistaken. I'll leave it to John to speak for himself on the matter.

...

...

Because that's intended to be part of the price, Randy. In exchange for gaining enforceable rights with respect to ARIN's provision of services, you quit any claim to your legacy addresses as property,

I would say you acknowledge the lack of such a claim in the first place rather than quit claim. Thus you are not giving up anything and the only actual price is $100 per year with very limited possible increases over future years.

The reality is that *no one knows* whether or not there are property rights. The difference between "quit claim any rights you have" and "acknowledge you never had any rights" isn't really relevant. Either way, you go from having whatever property rights you originally had (and no one knows for sure what those rights are) to probably not having any such rights.

Not exactly. In the "acknowledging you never had rights" scenario, you go from having no rights whatsoever to having a defined set of rights which may be less in scope than you imagined your rights to be prior to seeking documentation of said rights and discovering none.

With either language, if you never had any such rights, you aren't giving up anything. If you did previously have such rights, you probably are giving up something. Whether the language is written presupposing the existance of such rights, or presupposing the non-existance of such rights, has no real effect.

Ah, but, if you never had any such rights and you are gaining some rights (which is actually what the LRSA does) that is quite different from giving up rights. I agree that the perspective of the contractual language is nearly a no-op for the signatories of the contract.

OF course ARIN's position is that that clause merely clarifies a situation that already exists. But the fact that ARIN feels it needs clarifying illustrates the ambiguity.

Or, perhaps, the fact that ARIN feels it needs clarifying is indicative of ARIN acknowledging wide-spread mythology. I can acknowledge that the greeks believed Hades lived in the underworld and took the dead without believing that they were correct in that belief or accepting any ambiguity on the correctness of that belief.

...

Any belief that non-signatories enjoy rights not present in the RSA is speculative at best.

I suspect some people are in possession of legal advice to the contrary. (Well, sure, technically, it is speculative. But I'd imagine that some people have a pretty high degree of confidence in their speculation.)

That may well be true. I don't see how it makes any difference (other than possibly leading to future legal malpractice suits).

Let's put it this way: (This is a hypothetical point; I'm not actually making an offer here.) Say I'm willing to buy, for $10 per /24, any property rights that anyone with legacy space has in their legacy allocation, provided they have not signed an RSA or LRSA with respect to that space, and provided that they agree to never sign any such agreement, or nay similar agreement, with respect to that space.

s/nay/any/ ? (nay in that context doesn't parse for me, but, I want to make sure I am extracting the correct meaning)

If there's no property rights, that's a free $10 per /24. On the other hand, if there are property rights, then that's a pretty low price for giving me the authority to direct a transfer of the space whenever I feel like it.

Yep. My belief is that: 1. You'd have few takers at that price. 2. Even if you did, when you attempted to direct the transfer, the block would have a good chance of being reclaimed. 3. Upon reclamation, you'd have a poor chance of winning your lawsuit against ARIN to try and force the transfer.

How many people do you think would rationally take me up on this offer? At $10 per /24... roughly 0.

Would you advise an ISP with a legacy allocation that is temporarily short on cash to engage in such a transaction? If so, are you confident enough in your position that you'd agree to personally indemnify them against any loss they might incur if it turns out that there are property rights and now I hold them?

I would advise them against such a transaction because such a transaction would be contrary to ARIN policies and they could well lose their space in the process.

And that's really the crux of this argument. One side assumes there are no property rights and argues from that premise, the other side assumes there are and argues from that premise. But sides' arguments are logically sound (more or less), but they start from different premises, and starting there isn't going to do anything to convince the other side that its premise is wrong. People will just keep talking past each other if they decline to address the underlying difference in premise.

Agreed... Hence my bringing up the fact that it was different premises in the first place. Owen

On Aug 15, 2010, at 12:51 PM, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:

On Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:44:18 EDT, Owen DeLong said:

...

You and Randy operate from the assumption that these less certain rights somehow exist at all. I believe them to be fictitious in nature and contrary to the intent of number stewardship all the way back to Postel's original notebook. Postel himself is on record stating that disused addresses should be returned.

We've written RFCs that explain SHOULD != MUST.

Keep in mind that he said that back in a long-bygone era where sending an e-mail asking "If you're not going to deploy that address range, can you give it back just because it's the Right Thing To Do, even though there's a chance that 15 years from now, you'll be able to sell it for megabucks" didn't get 53 levels of management and lawyers involved.

On Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:33:34 EDT, Owen DeLong said:

...

A contract which clarifies that you still don't have rights you never had does not constitute relinquishing those non-existent rights no matter how many times you repeat yourself.

Ahh - but here's the kicker. For the contract to clarify the status of that right, it *is* admitting that the right exists and has a definition (even if not spelled out in the contract). A non-existent thing can't be the subject of a contract negotiation. So in the contract, you can agree that you don't have right XYZ, and clarify that you understand you never had right XYZ. But it doesn't make sense if XYZ is nonexistent.

There are lots of contracts which clarify that inaccuracies previously perceived as rights are, indeed, and always were, fictitious in nature. That is possible in a contract and is not as uncommon as one would wish it were. It does not magically lend credence to the prior fiction. Owen

On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 3:03 PM, John Curran <jcurran@arin.net> wrote:

 The last round of improvements to the LRSA (version 2.0) added several  circumstances that result in pre-contract status quo, and additional  ones could be added if the community wants such and the Board concurs.

John, I noticed and I appreciate it. Each round of revisions to the LRSA contract has brought it closer to being a document I could sign. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com  bill@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

On 8/15/10 6:25 PM, Tony Finch wrote:

On Sat, 14 Aug 2010, Randy Bush wrote:

...

when the registry work was re-competed and taken from sri to netsol (i think it was called that at the time), rick adams put in a no cost

when we (sri) lost the defense data network nic contract in may '91, disa awarded it to government systems inc., which eventually became netsol.

...

bid to do it all with automated scripts. hindsight tells me we should have supported that much more strongly.

I fear the abuse resulting from free domain registration.

the price point gsi set was $100/two-years, and later in litigation the portion earmarked to go a public agency was removed, resulting in the $75/two-year price point. of the things to fear, that hadn't happened then, such as the determination that domains are marks (wipo i), and the ancillary exploits, keeping the cost at the green-stamp price-point of zero dollars and zero cents seems a pretty odd thing to fear. yes, we f*cked by failing to keep the allocation mechanism profit neutral. -e

Randy Bush wrote:

and why in hell would i trust these organizations with any control of my routing via rpki certification? they have always said thay would never be involved in routing, but if they control the certification chain, they have a direct stranglehold they can use to extort fees.

Kind of interesting to consider how a successful implementation of RPKI might change the rules of this game we all play in. I tried talking about that at ARIN in Toronto, not certain I was clear enough. Joe

On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 09:57:51 EDT, Joe Maimon said:

Kind of interesting to consider how a successful implementation of RPKI might change the rules of this game we all play in. I tried talking about that at ARIN in Toronto, not certain I was clear enough.

I'm not at all convinced this would help all that much. A PKI would allow better verification of authentication - but how many providers currently have doubts about who the other end of their BGP session is? I'm sure most of the ones who care have already set up TCPMD5 and/or TTL hacks, and the rest wouldn't deploy an RPKI. The real problem is authorization - and the same people who don't currently apply filtering of BGP announcements won't deploy a PKI. So the people who care already have other tools to do most of the work, and the ones who don't care won't deploy. Sure it may be nice and allow automation of some parts of the mess, but I'm not seeing a big window here for it being a game-changer. If somebody has a good case for how it *will* be a game-changer, I'm all ears.

...

Kind of interesting to consider how a successful implementation of RPKI might change the rules of this game we all play in. I tried talking about that at ARIN in Toronto, not certain I was clear enough.

first, let's remember that the rpki is a distributed database which has a number of possible applications. the first technical application on the horizon is route origin validation.

I'm not at all convinced this would help all that much. A PKI would allow better verification of authentication - but how many providers currently have doubts about who the other end of their BGP session is? I'm sure most of the ones who care have already set up TCPMD5 and/or TTL hacks, and the rest wouldn't deploy an RPKI.

route origin validation is not about authenticating your neighbor. it is about being able to base your routing policy on whether the origin asn of an announcement is authorized to originate a particular prefix. it is stopping fat fingers such as pk/youtube, 7007, and the every day accidental mis-announcements of others' prefixes. randy

In message <4C69CB8D.4000202@foobar.org>, Nick Hilliard writes:

On 16/08/2010 21:46, Randy Bush wrote:

...

it is stopping fat fingers such as pk/youtube, 7007, and the every day accidental mis-announcements of others' prefixes.

I am dying to hear the explanation of why the people who didn't bother with irrdb filters are going to latch on en-masse to rpki thereby preventing a repeat of the 7007/youtube incidents.

More people will be willing to trust the databases if they know that they can be verified as (mostly) correct rather than hoping that they are correct.

Nick

-- Mark Andrews, ISC 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742 INTERNET: marka@isc.org

And in complete fairness - why should folks who received vast tracts of addresses for little or no cost under a justified-need regime now have free reign to monetize their sale?

All of the real estate in my part of New York traces back to Military Tract so and so. In the 1790s the state allocated two million acres on a justified-need basis, with the rule being that if you were a Revolutionary War veteran, that justified you getting 600 acres, free. You had to provide your own mule. Once the lots were all handed out, in subsequent transfers, nobody justified anything. If you want to sell and I want to buy, that's that and the county records it for a nominal clerical fee. You will doubtless find similar histories all over the country. IPv4 space is rapidly nearing the end of the homesteading era, and I suspect you're going to have as much luck insisting that future transfers obey the historic rules as my town would have had insisting that owners could subdivide only if they were selling to other veterans. To firm up my example of A selling to B a little, I was assuming there was nothing wrong with B other than that ARIN wasn't satisfied with the documentation they provided to show why they needed a /20. Maybe they're a startup, their VCs don't want them leaking their plans, and don't see why anyone needs any justification other than the bill of sale from A. (Yes, I realize there's ways to finesse this particular scenario. It's an example.) There's nothing hijacked here, the space wasn't allocated to anyone other than A who for some reason, such as loss of a customer, doesn't want it any more. Are networks going to treat this the same as someone hijacking space and hosting malware or sending fake drug spam? Really? From what I can tell, unless a range is emitting actively annoying traffic, there's no pushback about routing it at all. R's, John PS: If you disagree, tell me about 130.105.0.0/16, which belongs to the long defunct Open Software Foundation.

Convincingly said here on an ISP mailing list. But what about the folks who were denied address assignments by ARIN policies over the last 15 years? Denied them based on the fiction that ISPs didn't own IP addresses, that they were merely holding the addresses in trust for the public they serve. ...

I dunno. What was New York's responsibility in the 1790s to guys who didn't join the army because they had to stay home and take care of their widowed mother and six younger sisters? I wouldn't for a moment claim that IPv4 space was a way that was uniformly fair or wise or close to ideal. But I don't think you're going to have much luck imposing fairness and wisdom retroactively on people who've already got the space. R's, John

It was 40 acres and a mule - FYI On 8/14/10 11:22 AM, "John R. Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:

...

Convincingly said here on an ISP mailing list. But what about the folks who were denied address assignments by ARIN policies over the last 15 years? Denied them based on the fiction that ISPs didn't own IP addresses, that they were merely holding the addresses in trust for the public they serve. ...

I dunno. What was New York's responsibility in the 1790s to guys who didn't join the army because they had to stay home and take care of their widowed mother and six younger sisters?

I wouldn't for a moment claim that IPv4 space was a way that was uniformly fair or wise or close to ideal. But I don't think you're going to have much luck imposing fairness and wisdom retroactively on people who've already got the space.

R's, John

On Aug 14, 2010, at 10:27, Jimi Thompson <jimi.thompson@gmail.com> wrote:

It was 40 acres and a mule - FYI

No 40 acres was 1/4 of 1/4 of a section. That's 's Sherman's field order (1865) not the homestead act (which was 160). Or the circa 1790 activity referred to in this thread. Joel's iPad

On 8/14/10 11:22 AM, "John R. Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:

...

...

Convincingly said here on an ISP mailing list. But what about the folks who were denied address assignments by ARIN policies over the last 15 years? Denied them based on the fiction that ISPs didn't own IP addresses, that they were merely holding the addresses in trust for the public they serve. ...

I dunno. What was New York's responsibility in the 1790s to guys who didn't join the army because they had to stay home and take care of their widowed mother and six younger sisters?

I wouldn't for a moment claim that IPv4 space was a way that was uniformly fair or wise or close to ideal. But I don't think you're going to have much luck imposing fairness and wisdom retroactively on people who've already got the space.

R's, John