How come we've had an inetnum market in place whereas an inetnum cannot
have a market value ?
It's my understanding that the IP adress space is nothing but numbers
and that RIR/LIRs are only responsible for the uniqueness of allocations
and assignements, that is, a transfer of liability over a shared and
common immaterial resource, between community members.
I'm wondering how did we made "Temporary and conditionnal liabality
transfer" a synonym of "perpetual and inconditional usufruct transfer".
I'm wondering how did we made "Temporary and conditionnal liabality
transfer" a synonym of "perpetual and inconditional usufruct transfer".
May you please enlight me ?
There are always ways around the system. I suspect what has happened is that IRR's require that a company hold addresses but they have provisions for companies to be sold or change names. So the IP address brokers probably sell a "business" with the IP address block.
It might be simpler than that. I don't know what the loopholes are but I'm sure some lawyers have read through all the documents and found a way. I imagine it's never been tested in court because proving the system is being exploited would be hard, and the parties with a vested interest probably don't have the resources to make a fight of it.
How come we have real property "ownership"? It is nothing but a record of invisible boundary lines on the surface of the earth, despite the earth and its land area being a shared resource for its animal and plant inhabitants.
1. Address space is finite in size, therefore in the V4 space more people want addresses than there is available space. Hence it has value because demand exceeds supply.
2. Managing address space allocations is not a zero cost effort, therefore the RIRs charge a price for that. Anything that costs money to acquire presumably has value.
Oh, and I forgot to add...the number in and of itself does not have a value. The right to use that number within the Internet connected network is what has value.
Steven Naslund
Chicago IL
Simple to answer.
1. Address space is finite in size, therefore in the V4 space more people want addresses than there is available space. Hence it has value because demand exceeds supply.
2. Managing address space allocations is not a zero cost effort, therefore the RIRs charge a price for that. Anything that costs money to acquire presumably has value.
IP addresses are property. A few people get really bent out of shape
if you say that IP addresses are property. And while extant, the legal
precedent for IP addresses as property isn't as strong as might be
nice. So, we mostly pay lip service to the folks who still want to
claim that IP addresses are just integers even as we treat IP
addresses like property.
Oh, and I forgot to add...the number in and of itself does not have a value. The right to use that number within the Internet connected network is what has value.
But that’s not what RIRs give you.
RIRs have no control over your right to use the number within the context of any network.
RIRs merely provide a record of unique registrations among cooperating registries.
Most network operators currently use this database as a basis for granting permissions to use the numbers within their network contexts, but any network operator that wants to is free to assign any number they wish to any purpose or entity they so choose. Your network, your rules.
Turns out, that since most network operators follow the RIR database, it’s hard to find peers that will accept your announcement of “off-list” usage of addresses, but that’s not an inherent right conveyed in the registration of an address within the RIR system.
Unique registrations in the RIR databases may well be property.
IP addresses are so abstract and ephemeral in their nature as to be impossible to treat as property other than by creating some sort of statutory system requiring all network operators to obey a certain set of cooperating registries for said numbers and then using those unique registrations mentioned above to convey property rights in the operational deployment of the ephemeral numbers referenced.
Ownership of the rights to control (convey, modify, update) a registration record are tangible and can be property.
The control over how a network operator interprets, deploys, uses, or otherwise manipulates a particular integer or packets containing a particular integer in a particular field of the packet is not actually subject to any sort of enforceable property rights.
For example, if you have gotten a registration for A.B.C.0/24 from an RIR and you then purchase internet access from $PROVIDER_A, you have nothing which will force $PROVIDER_A to convey all packets to A.B.C.0/24 to your network unless that’s what you add to your contract.
Further, if some other customer of $PROVIDER_B convinces them to treat A.B.C.0/24 differently within $PROVIDER_B’s network, there’s no law which prohibits that and no way for you to enforce any sort of restraint on their choice to do so.
You might… _MIGHT_ have a case for tortious interference if $PROVIDER_B advertises A.B.C.0/24 to some other provider in a way that negatively impacts your network, but to the best of my knowledge, even that is relatively untested.
So far, resolving any such conflicts has depended almost entirely on the fact that ISPs generally cooperate with the RIR system and treat it as an authoritative list for granting permission to use addresses in their networks.
If ISPs start opting out of that particular choice, life gets much more interesting, but I don’t think there’s any sort of ownership conveyed in an RIR registration that allows you to prevent an ISP that you aren’t in a contract with from doing so.
Unique registrations in the RIR databases may well be property.
Hi Owen,
Registration records property. Registrations are not the property recorded.
The U.S. Supreme Court talks about property this way: "The right to
exclude others [is] one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of
rights that are commonly characterized as property." (Kaiser Aetna v.
United States)
Do I have the legal right to exclude others from announcing my block
of IP addresses to the public Internet routing tables? It's not well
tested in court but the odds are exceptionally strong that I do.
Indeed, the whole point of registration is to facilitate determination
of -who- has the exclusive right over -which- blocks of addresses.
Do I have the legal right to exclude others from announcing my block
of IP addresses to the public Internet routing tables? It's not well
tested in court but the odds are exceptionally strong that I do.
If I own some property - say a field - the location of that field is
with certain rare exceptions public information. I as the owner cannot
enforce a requirement on you to NOT tell people where my field is. I
can't demand that you NOT build roads past it, or that you NOT put up
signs saying how to get to my field, or even that you NOT tell people
who owns the field. I have the right to exclusive use of the property,
but I have no rights to information about the property, nor any
property rights outside the boundary of the property.
Testing in court the idea that you may not advertise my routes would be
a fascinating exercise. If you falsely advertised them it would be a
different matter.
Has this sort of thing been tested in the courts at all? In any
jurisdiction?
Indeed, the whole point of registration is to facilitate
determination
of -who- has the exclusive right over -which- blocks of addresses.
The problem is what rights we are talking about. I would say that
practically speaking the only real right here is the right to configure
an address on an interface. But anyone else can send packets to an
address, or advertise to others the direction of travel towards that
network. Malicious activity excluded of course - DoS attacks and so on,
but I think the issues there are different. Also, contractually
regulated relationships are different - if I connect something up to
ISPX and have a contract with ISPX to NOT advertise the route to me,
then ISPX is constrained.
A trademark owner invoking the UDRP generally is able to exclude
anyone else that can't present an equally valid claim to the name.
That's why the vast majority of squatted names are for sale at just
under the cost of invoking the UDRP.
Testing in court the idea that you may not advertise my routes would be
a fascinating exercise. If you falsely advertised them it would be a
different matter.
Hi Karl,
I'm having trouble seeing the nit you're picking. I can't compel you
to announce my BGP route but if you do announce it and your
announcement is inconsistent with my own then by definition it's
false. If your announcement is consistent with my own then you're
propagating the route as intended and I have no cause for complaint.
Has this sort of thing been tested in the courts at all? In any
jurisdiction?
So far as I know, network operators have interceded and the false
routes have been withdrawn long before any route hijacking cases would
have gone to court.
The numbers (IP addresses) are not the field. The servers are the field.
The numbers are the street addresses of the server. Domain names would be
a nick name for the numbers, like PaddingHouse.com is at 55.51.52.1. The
BGP table is a road map.
That's why it was once called the Super Information Highway, remember?
You can sell street/road maps to the stars, and the stars don't have to
let you in.
As far as I know there is no requirement to announce your assigned or
legacy owned prefixes to the world. You have the right to announce them.
I don't think you can legally stop others from announcing your path to
them. Once you publicly announce something, it's out there.
Oh well, maybe I didn't get the original question. I thought the
discussion was about a network's right to prevent others in the world from
announcing/propagating a route to that network's prefixes. Seemed to be a
legal question and the field analogy someone put forth seemed to apply
well. I can't take credit for that as I simply tuned it and showed how it
fit in a historical way. I think a lawyer would probably make this analogy
in a court.
Unique registrations in the RIR databases may well be property.
Hi Owen,
Registration records property. Registrations are not the property recorded.
The U.S. Supreme Court talks about property this way: "The right to
exclude others [is] one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of
rights that are commonly characterized as property." (Kaiser Aetna v.
United States)
And you get no such right in IP addresses.
Do I have the legal right to exclude others from announcing my block
of IP addresses to the public Internet routing tables? It's not well
tested in court but the odds are exceptionally strong that I do.
Indeed, the whole point of registration is to facilitate determination
of -who- has the exclusive right over -which- blocks of addresses.
Not so much, no.
First, there’s no good definition of “the public Internet” and there’s
no single definition of “public routing tables”.
There is, instead, the set of individually run networks who cooperate in
the exchange of traffic by sharing routes.
Any right to exclude would be a right to control how each and every one
of those networks operates. Since many of those networks are outside of
the jurisdiction of any court to which you would likely have access and
to the best of my knowledge there is no international court of competent
jurisdiction to compel ISPs around the world to obey any such order,
no, you have no right to exclude.
Which brings us back around to what I said earlier: IP addresses are
property but the legal precedent isn't as strong as might be nice.
I think I have shown that you do not have the right to exclude, so if you
have some other basis by which you think you can define these property
rights, let’s have it.
I argue that because what you actually mean by “the public Internet” is
a combination of so many different legal entities in so many not-necessarily-
overlapping jurisdictions and because there is no single jurisdiction to
which they are all subject, nor even necessarily any particular agreed
upon complete shared definition or enumeration of all of them, the ability
to enforce any sort of right to exclusion is nothing but a myth, making
any such alleged right also mythical.
IP addresses are so abstract and ephemeral in their nature
as to be impossible to treat as property
Computers don't do abstraction. There's nothing abstract or
particularly ephemeral about the use of IP addresses on the public
Internet.
Please in a legal way define this single entity that you refer to as
“the public Internet” such that some court would have jurisdiction over
the entirety of its operations.
Then please define the venue of jurisdiction to which you would avail
yourself in order to compel said entity to obey such an order.
Indeed, the reason there aren’t any court precedents to support your
position is because when hijackings have occurred, the solution has
been to contact the provider and/or upstream providers of the one
engaged in hijacking. Case in point, the incident between YouTube
and AS17557 over 208.65.153.0/24. Do you really think that the
Pakistani government would have ever punished Pakistan Telecom or
that YouTube could have obtained any useful injunctive relief in
that jurisdiction?
No, instead, they contacted PCCW and got voluntary cooperation in
no longer forwarding the announcement. This isn’t a sign of a right
of exclusion, but of a gentlemen’s agreement amongst service providers.
It would have been quite difficult for YouTube to get any sort of
injunctive relief against Pakistan Telecom. It might have been possible
for them to get injunctive relief against PCCW, but even that is iffy.
What if hundreds of other service providers had also forwarded the route?
YouTube would have needed injunctions against each and every one of them.
It’s not at all clear what happens with the ones that do operate in the US
where YouTube has the greatest likelihood of getting injunctive relief.
It’s even less clear what happens with any that are not subject to US
courts.
