That is correct as long as that direct allocation came from ARIN. A really large chunk of address space was allocated (especially to the government entities) way before ARIN was controlling the space. I think the large percentage of space held by non-ARIN members come from those really large allocations going back to ARPANET and DDN days.
AFAIK A lot of those entities are not necessarily members although they could be if they want to be.
Steven Naslund
john:
i appreciate the numbers. thanks! and, btw, it has always been a
pleasure to work with arin staff.
Thanks (we do work for you, member or not, if you hold resources in the region.)
...
the arin membership consists of 17% of the address holding organizations
in the region (plus a few folk who buy membership), and they hold 42% of
the address space.
Correct.
so the 17% (give or take) elect the board [0], and the board, through a
complex inside-controlled process [1], sets policy for the other
unrepresented 83%.
To be perfectly clear, it is even lower in practice... 17% _could_ elect
the ARIN Board and the ARIN Advisory Council (ARIN AC), but that would be
presuming 100% participation.
Actual election participation is actually fairly high for an association;
we had approx 15% participation (~ 600 organizations) in 2013 elections -
<https://www.arin.net/announcements/2013/20131023.html>
...and the board and policy wonks set policy and
contracts, among other things the lrsa and rsa, which place serious
barriers to becoming a member, such as clauses with arin being able to
unilaterally change ts&cs arbitrarily. [2] [3]
You might want to tease those two statements apart -
The ARIN Board provides organization oversight, and this includes
fees, services, contracts and related terms and conditions.
The ARIN AC administers the policy process, and this includes
incorporating edits to draft policies based on the community
discussion.
and i know the "anyone can partiipate" theory. but in fact extremely
few participate, and arin pays many of the policy wonks to fly around
the world business class and spread the arin regulatory religion. no
other rir does this.
I do not know if the other RIRs send their equivalent community "policy
working group" folks to other RIR meetings; we do - the purpose is not
evangelism but to bring back information on ongoing policy developments
in other regions.
and this is a representative bottom up organization claiming legitimacy
in the global arena? i would be interested in similar numbers for other
rirs, and whether their service agreements are similarly onerous. (and
i believe that ripe is actively tearing down barriers to participation).
It is true that we have an abundance of resource holders who received
resources prior to ARIN, and that is going to skew the numbers for this
region significantly.
I know that you don't believe that we've been tearing down barriers to
participation, but one of the reasons that the legacy service agreement
was updated (again) recently was specifically to be more explicit about
rights for the address holder. We specifically lay these out now, note
that revocation will not occur based on utilization, and provide a fee
schedule that is favorable compared to those issued resources after
ARIN's formation. There does remain one very significant difference
between some in the community and ARIN - that is on the applicability
of community-developed policy to legacy holders, and this is a fairly
fundamental issue that has definitely reduced interest in folks signing
an LRSA and participating as members.
FYI - I'm going to comment on your footnotes, since you use terminology
below which is factually incorrect.
[0] as you know, there has been at least one occasion where the board
election has been rigged. at your encouragement, i once submitted
the whole nomination rig-a-marole to the nomcom. my name did not
appear on the ballot, which i found out only when the ballot came
out, and was never even viven a reason.
ARIN has a nomination committee (like many other Internet organizations
such as IETF, ISOC, ICANN) and its deliberations are private. I do not
sit on it, so there is not much I can add, but I would definitely welcome
suggestions for improvements to the nomination and election process.
A NomCom (composed of a selection of Board, AC, and at large members)
which deliberates privately does not equate to "rigged" by any means,
although I will agree it does raise reasonable questions of transparency.
Note that anyone can make it onto the ballot via petition, and that is
a mechanism that has been used successfully in the past.
[1] an outsider can not make a proposal that is not modifiably by an
'advisory' committee. and most are revised. [smell same problem
as nomcom?]
While the ARIN AC does hold the editors pen (and from what I am told
does a good job of reflecting discussions), there has always been (and
remains today) a simple petition process available at each stage if you
think that they have somehow failed and want your original text to go
to the ARIN Public policy meeting and the ARIN Board.
[2] who would sign such an agreement except under threat of not having
the resources necessary to run their business? see Extortion - Wikipedia
Membership organizations set terms and conditions for their services,
and ARIN is no different. The answer is, of course, to participate in
the election process; as you have already noted, if even a fraction of a
percent of the community (30 to 50 folks) felt strongly there was a major
issue, they could put candidates in each election which were assured of
being elected, and could in short order significantly alter practices
to better match their expectations. That would be a case of improved
community representation, and therefore the most appropriate outcome.
I appreciate your note, Randy - far better to express these concerns
and get folks thinking about them than to have them go unstated...
Thanks!
/John
John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN
p.s. Discussion of improvements to ARIN election process would probably
be best send over to ARIN-discuss or PPML (for sake of those here
who lack interest) but I'll leave that to this list to decide. I
would also recommend (for folks who have suggestions they'd like to
send privately) to send them to me, and I'll get them to the ARIN
Board.
Randy,
I am not sure I understand the argument here. If you think that ARIN is not representing the address space holders in proper fashion, how would we suggest correcting that? If an address holder does not become a member (which is fairly easy to do if you care enough) how would we even know what their concerns or feelings are? It is like any electoral process, if you choose not to represent yourself it is hard to complain about the outcomes. ARIN does work under a contract so I would assume if there were serious concerns about their structure or conduct, there is some oversight being conducted.
My earlier comments regarding legacy space holders and the number of address space holders goes to the heart of using those stats to make your assertion. First of all, the number of /24s is not proportional to the total number of members Whether I hold 50 or 1000 /24s, I am still one member. I would assumes that holders of large amounts of space (like service providers) are more likely to be members than the entity that holds one smaller allocation for their business purposes.
Given that the US Gov't holds a vast amount of the legacy space skews the results a lot. They might or might not be a "member" but they certainly hold a lot of influence in ARINs operation as the one who controls the contract. If ARIN was to cross them the wrong way, they might not be holding that contract very long.
The reality of the Internet is that much of the policy and standard making comes from a small very technical minority of its users like us. Most users of the Internet could care less about numbering policy and RFCs because they don't feel the impact of it, they just use and enjoy the technology. They just don't care about the wizards behind the curtain. Issues that look important inside our fishbowl do not mean much to the outside world. Just ask every person that uses an IP address where they came from an see how many know or care.
If the general public was to feel much pain in the process they might ask more questions but it seems that in general they are sufficiently happy not to worry about the details. As a service provider I was more concerned with ARIN policy than I am now as a commercial entity holding a couple of blocks. When I was a provider I cared about allocation and process more because I had a continuous need for more space for growth. Back then ARIN was new and the process changes were very fluid and hard to keep up with. As a commercial entity with enough space for the future and no major expansion plans I am less concerned about ARIN policy short of them trying to pull back my space (which they seem to be doing everything possible to avoid).
John may be too polite to say so but I think asking him for information publicly on NANOG (which he very promptly responded to) and then publicly slamming ARINs process does not seem very fair to me. ARIN has a process for having views like this to be heard and a process for taking the helm (or at least some of it) if you think enough people agree. If John cares enough to monitor and respond to the community here on NANOG, I find it hard to believe that they don't care about our concerns.
Steven Naslund
Chicago IL
john:
i appreciate the numbers. thanks! and, btw, it has always been a
pleasure to work with arin staff.Total number of /24s of space directly registered in ARIN's database =
6,644,175 (101.38 /8 equivalents)Of those: 2,808,621 /24s of space (42.3%) are registered to ARIN
members (42.86 /8 equivalents)Total number of Org IDs with directly registered IPv4 addresses = 26,148
Of those: 4,520 (17%) are ARIN members
the arin membership consists of 17% of the address holding organizations
in the region (plus a few folk who buy membership), and they hold 42% of
the address space.so the 17% (give or take) elect the board [0], and the board, through a
complex inside-controlled process [1], sets policy for the other
unrepresented 83%. and the board and policy wonks set policy and
contracts, among other things the lrsa and rsa, which place serious
barriers to becoming a member, such as clauses with arin being able to
unilaterally change ts&cs arbitrarily. [2] [3]
Many facts not in evidence in that paragraph some of which are outright wrong.
[0] As a member of the nominating committee in question, I will disagree with
your claim that our declining to nominate you constitutes rigging the election.
While I can’t disclose the details due to NDA restrictions on the NomCom,
I will say that in my experience having served on the NomCom several times,
they consider each potential nominee and do not take their duties lightly.
[1] Anyone can make a proposal. If the outsider’s proposal is modified
by the AC, and the proposer does not like the modifications, the proposer
has an available petition process by which they can, if successful, get
the original proposal directly to the community for consideration. IIRC,
this petition process requires 10 or fewer people to support the proposer’s
position in order to succeed.
As to the LRSA/RSA, in fact, the policies cannot be changed unilaterally,
they must be changed by a community driven consensus process except
in the case of emergency policy action by the board. To the best of my
knowledge, the board has only used that emergency authority twice.
Any emergency action is subject to review by the AC within 1 month and
by the community within 6 months.
and i know the "anyone can partiipate" theory. but in fact extremely
few participate, and arin pays many of the policy wonks to fly around
the world business class and spread the arin regulatory religion. no
other rir does this.
Anyone with an email address who chooses to make the effort can easily
participate. The barrier to participation is close to zero. If you have
constructive suggestions on ways to increase participation, they are
welcome.
The other RIRs do, in fact, send representatives to all of the RIR meetings,
so I’m not sure how you can make the above claim, unless your real
concern is the fact issue of the business class travel.
Owen
ok, let me also try to be constructive. how the heck do we get
ourselves out of a hole where we are ruled by self-perptuating
monopolies which lack oversight and accountability. and it ain't just
arin. look at the big [cc]tlds, the horror of icann, ...
i believe the only real solution is to open the game as wide as
possible.
for arin, remove the onerous ts&cs and the rights issues from the lrsa
so that we can all go out and get everyone to join and participate.
change the governance. term limits for board members and AC are
critical. i see little value in the AC except to create further
blockage and diversion. require that 25% of the board have enable and
get some social blood in there, e.g. a librarian, susan crawford (a real
internet policy person, not a damned wannabe weenie), or whatever.
and stop flying baby policy weenies around the world in business class
to stand up in meetings and say they are from arin. if you want arin
represented, send staff. if arin wants input from foonog or barnic,
send staff. arin has some good staff. the policy wannabes not so much.
create artifical competition by allowing rir venue shopping. these
geographic monopolies were a mistake.
randy, who really needs to go back to work
omg! a friend just sent this great example of how far down we have gone
https://www.arin.net/about_us/committeecharters.html#governance
there is a governance committee. guess the composition. "The Committee
shall consist of three elected members from the Board of Trustees." how
wonderfully corrupt.
and this is the self same board which could not agree to limit their own
terms, <https://www.arin.net/about_us/bot/bot2012_1025.html>. "The Board
discussed term limits for its members and members of the ARIN AC. No
consensus was reached."
my youngest granddaughter's kindergarten has better governance.
and they're not even embarrassed. sheesh!
randy
Randy,
Thanks for giving me a lead in!
ARIN has been gradually evolving and tweaking the governance over the past fifteen years. Given it’s a small board it’s been generally done at the full Board historically.
We’ve recently started to take a long look at a variety of issues to see if there is a better way to structure ourselves to deliver the mission and stay accountable to the community.
We do have a small sub-set working given there is a lot of things to go through and I am leading the charge on that issue for the ARIN Board. Over the coming months we'll be more formally looking for community input on a variety of governance and accountability issues. In the interim we're happy to take any informal input directly.
The specific point you mention in regards to term limits has been taken out of context in that the thought was that as part of a larger process we should likely go ask our various communities their thoughts on this and other issues which seems to be in line with what your asking.
And no - not embarrassed… However the always colourful feedback is appreciated and will be taken into account.
Cheers,
-p
I am not sure I understand the argument here. If you think that ARIN
is not representing the address space holders in proper fashion, how
would we suggest correcting that?
i have made off the cuff suggestions. but seriously, i would seek real
external governance counsel.
If an address holder does not become a member (which is fairly easy to
do if you care enough) how would we even know what their concerns or
feelings are?
read my lips
the number of /24s is not proportional to the total number of members
which is why i asked both questions
Given that the US Gov't holds a vast amount of the legacy space skews
the results a lot. They might or might not be a "member" but they
certainly hold a lot of influence in ARINs operation as the one who
controls the contract. If ARIN was to cross them the wrong way, they
might not be holding that contract very long.
there is no such contract. arin is not the icann or iana.
randy
Randy,
Thanks for giving me a lead in!
ARIN has been gradually evolving and tweaking the governance over the past fifteen years. Given it’s a small board it’s been generally done at the full Board historically.
We’ve recently started to take a long look at a variety of issues to see if there is a better way to structure ourselves to deliver the mission and stay accountable to the community.
We do have a small sub-set working given there is a lot of things to go through and I am leading the charge on that issue for the ARIN Board. Over the coming months we'll be more formally looking for community input on a variety of governance and accountability issues. In the interim we're happy to take any informal input directly.
The specific point you mention in regards to term limits has been taken out of context in that the thought was that as part of a larger process we should likely go ask our various communities their thoughts on this and other issues which seems to be in line with what your asking.
And no - not embarrassed… However the always colourful feedback is appreciated and will be taken into account.
Cheers,
-p
Randy,
Thanks for giving me a lead in!
ARIN has been gradually evolving and tweaking the governance over the past fifteen years. Given it’s a small board it’s been generally done at the full Board historically.
We’ve recently started to take a long look at a variety of issues to see if there is a better way to structure ourselves to deliver the mission and stay accountable to the community.
We do have a small sub-set working given there is a lot of things to go through and I am leading the charge on that issue for the ARIN Board. Over the coming months we'll be more formally looking for community input on a variety of governance and accountability issues. In the interim we're happy to take any informal input directly.
The specific point you mention in regards to term limits has been taken out of context in that the thought was that as part of a larger process we should likely go ask our various communities their thoughts on this and other issues which seems to be in line with what your asking.
And no - not embarrassed… However the always colourful feedback is appreciated and will be taken into account.
Cheers,
-p
Randy -
The ARIN Board has a governance committee, and so I'll leave
responding to your ARIN specific governance points to the Chair
of that committee (Paul Andersen)...
With respect to entire Internet name and number ecosystem, I do
not agree with the characterization that "... we are ruled by
self-perptuating monopolies which lack oversight and accountability",
but also in the spirit of being constructive, let me agree that:
1) It is a very strange family of organizations with rather
uneven governance practices.
2) There is a real risk that one or more of these organizations
could evolve into "self-perptuating monopolies which lack
oversight and accountability", and this risk is definitely
worthy of folks attention considering NTIA's IANA announcement.
In particular, it would be wise idea to folks to think about the
what should be the underlying principles for the governance of
all of these organizations... The IANA transition announcement
that I forwarded earlier is about building a plan which meets
the NTIA's requirements for transiting its oversight role -
<http://www.ntia.doc.gov/press-release/2014/ntia-announces-intent-transition-key-internet-domain-name-functions>
"... NTIA has communicated to ICANN that the transition proposal must have broad community support and address the following four principles:
• Support and enhance the multistakeholder model;
• Maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS;
• Meet the needs and expectation of the global customers and partners of the IANA services; and,
• Maintain the openness of the Internet."
That third requirement (meet the needs and expectations of the
global customers) is going to be hard to satisfy without really
good governance practices - it would be good if folks who feel
like you do take a moment to remind NTIA what exactly you think
good governance practices are; paraphrasing your points, that
might be elements such as:
- Simple terms and conditions for contracts with registries
- Membership organizations for registries with term limits
for Board and advisory bodies
- Board diversity (meaning real world users)
- Competitive registries
- ...
There will shortly be a process to share such input into the
transition plan; I will make sure its well known on this list
and the ARIN lists. Folks should begin thinking so that they
can provide insight into what they expect from the Internet
name and number registry system as conditions necessary for
USG/NTIA to effect a transition of its stewardship role to
these organizations collectively.
Thanks!
/John
John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN
paul,
ARIN has been gradually evolving and tweaking the governance over the
past fifteen years.
and there has been microscopic change
Given it’s a small board it’s been generally done at the full Board
historically.
i think there is some idiom about the fox guarding the hen house. it
should be done by a group of grownups from the outside. a subcommittee
of the current governance discussing change in governance would be a
great joke if you did not seem to take it seriously.
We’ve recently started to take a long look at a variety of issues to
see if there is a better way to structure ourselves to deliver the
mission and stay accountable to the community.
s/stay/become/
83% of the community is not even in the room! and that is only
considering address holders as the community.
we are actually responsible to a much larger society. when we were
forming arin, then then chair of the fcc explained to me why the fcc had
commissioners who were from the general consumer public. i tried to get
a librarian and a 15 year old with a modem on the original icann board,
but no one took me seriously.
We do have a small sub-set working given there is a lot of things to
go through and I am leading the charge on that issue for the ARIN
Board.
once upon a time early in the icann debacle, i was dragged on to some
high-falootin' committee. at a meeting (in sjc, i think), an outspoken
audience member asked what the hell i was doing on the committee. i got
out of my chair and asked him to please take it and replace me. it had
the added feature of getting me out of that committee. 
now, i have zero desire to be on the arin board again. but you and the
self appointed internal governance committee need to get out of your
chairs. we need real governance folk to form a group to figure out how
the heck to get out of the mud. i did not mention susan crawford idly.
outsiders!
and, btw, it's not just arin. in general, our internet administrative
groups have classic but quite astonishing governance processes. while
icann is quite competitive, arin does kinda take the cake.
randy
I do not agree with the characterization that "... we are ruled by
self-perptuating monopolies which lack oversight and accountability",
when you have a governance committee which is composed of the governing,
not outsiders and governance experts, with no term limits, it would seem
hard to support that argument.
- Simple terms and conditions for contracts with registries
- Membership organizations for registries with term limits
for Board and advisory bodies
- Board diversity (meaning real world users)
- Competitive registries
- ...
i pretty much agree that arin should do these. except ...
iff we could get reasonable governance, i am not sure we need multiple
rirs. after all, the registries were just supposed to be bookkeepers.
but i agree that competition is a good method of injecting some reality
into the physics in the absense of other means.
but i eagerly await the simplification of arin's ts&cs. and get rid of
being able to change them unilateraly and arbitrarily, and get rid the
silly game about legacy rights, and a whole bunch of us might join.
randy
I do not agree with the characterization that "... we are ruled by
self-perptuating monopolies which lack oversight and accountability",when you have a governance committee which is composed of the governing,
not outsiders and governance experts, with no term limits, it would seem
hard to support that argument.
Acknowledged, and I will provide that feedback to the Board.
I have nothing against term limits (but I also did not champion them back
when I was an elected member of the Board of Trustees.) Many cite risk
of losing well-qualified and experienced Board members right when they
are most productive as the counter-argument. This is probably a fairly
prolonged discussion, and the ARIN membership also needs to weigh in...
- Simple terms and conditions for contracts with registries
- Membership organizations for registries with term limits
for Board and advisory bodies
- Board diversity (meaning real world users)
- Competitive registries
- ...i pretty much agree that arin should do these. except ...
iff we could get reasonable governance, i am not sure we need multiple
rirs. after all, the registries were just supposed to be bookkeepers.
but i agree that competition is a good method of injecting some reality
into the physics in the absense of other means.but i eagerly await the simplification of arin's ts&cs. and get rid of
being able to change them unilateraly and arbitrarily, and get rid the
silly game about legacy rights, and a whole bunch of us might join.
I will note that this discussion is presently on nanog, and I am not
certain that all of the ARIN Board members subscribe... I will forward
your message to the Board, but would you prefer to take this to one of
the ARIN lists, or have a us setup a distinct list for this purpose,
or something else?
Thanks!
/John
John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN
[ you're cheating, you're in an asian time zone! ]
I have nothing against term limits (but I also did not champion them back
when I was an elected member of the Board of Trustees.) Many cite risk
of losing well-qualified and experienced Board members right when they
are most productive as the counter-argument.
that is always the argument. the benefits of openness and new blood far
outweigh the 'benefit' of rule by old dogs who appoint committees of
themselves.
I will note that this discussion is presently on nanog, and I am not
certain that all of the ARIN Board members subscribe.
an interesting point in itself, as north american operators are the
smallest description of the arin constituency. a new ietf ops area
director once asked me to monitor the nanog list for them and tell them
if anything passed that was important. i told them that they should
resign immediately.
I will forward your message to the Board
thanks
but would you prefer to take this to one of the ARIN lists
my experience is that ppml, the only one i remember, is far too toxic
for me to last more than a day.
and this is about the whole bleeping internet community. arin is far
too closed and inward facing, breathing its own smoke.
or have a us setup a distinct list for this purpose, or something
else?
how about forming an *outside* arin governance brainstorming committee?
not binding. but a fresh, outside, wide-ranging, expert view.
as i just said to someone privately,
scan the entire array of internet administrative/infrastructural
organizations. show me one that has a good, responsive,
representative, open, ... governance structure.
the ietf is interesting except it's a technocratic meritocracy. and
i certainly would not call its governance open.
i would make it clear that things such as policy, personalities, ... are
out of scope. and i would beg to get some heavy hitters to help, which
is why i keep plugging susan crawford as an example. there are others.
i'd also suggest one non-board insider such as cja, so that questions
about internals can be answered.
yes, opening up the game is scary. it darned well should be. it could
change the status quo. but that might be good for arin, good for the
community, and good for the internet.
randy
Randy (et al):
Included below is the response by Joe Sims (Jones Day) to Professor
Froomkin's similar arguments in 1999. I include it because it's not
that long but the link is:
http://archive.icann.org/en/comments-mail/comment-bylaws/msg00025.html
I found it interesting and very readable. Not necessarily
authoritative, but interesting. If nothing else it covers much of the
ground being re-hashed here and seems thoughtful even if one doesn't
agree.
-Barry Shein
There is a simple way to solve this problem and indemnify the nomcom against all further such claims. Let anyone volunteer for a spot on the ballot. Let the membership decide who should be elected.
Doug