Hi,
Seems scanning ARIN's database for B's is becoming a trend. Anybody want
to provide the procmail incantation to forward flems and other wasted bits
(like this message) to Gabriel automatically?
Don't these people realize addresses have no value? After all, addresses
are just integers. Right, Bill? 
Hmmm. At last! A way to cover the upkeep costs for my black helicopter
(they're so useful, I didn't want to return it when I left APNIC)! As
APNIC's 16 Bs are still registered to me, I see a _wonderful_ profit
potential -- anybody got the URL for the Address Black Market, I seem to
have misplaced it...?
Regards,
-drc
David,
Actually, there's every reason to believe that if you have space from prior
to the adoption of RFC2008 and 2050 you indeed do have something which is
(1) property, and (2) valuable if someone is willing to pay you for it.
Specifically, RFC2008 says:
While it has never been explicitly stated that various Internet
Registries use the "address ownership" allocation policy, it has
always been assumed (and practiced).
That sentence, in particular the last five words of that sentence, are
extremely important. 10+ years of a given practice and set of operating
rules cannot be overturned by fiat.
karl@Mcs.Net (Karl Denninger) writes:
Specifically, RFC2008 says:
While it has never been explicitly stated that various Internet
Registries use the "address ownership" allocation policy, it has
always been assumed (and practiced).
That sentence, in particular the last five words of that sentence, are
extremely important. 10+ years of a given practice and set of operating
rules cannot be overturned by fiat.
One might notice that these words were written in an RFC. Not in a law
book.
They have all of the legal weight of a Jim Flem-o-gram.
Tony
Then so does ARIN's and the IANA's ability to control and delegate addresses.
You can't have it both ways. Either the IETF process is valid, in which
case the precedents it sets are also valid, or it is not, in which case
none of the existing "organizations" have any validity at all, INCLUDING
THOSE POSTULATED UNDER THE WHITE PAPER AND THE IANA2 DOCUMENTS.
Which would you prefer?
> One might notice that these words were written in an RFC. Not in a law
> book.
Then so does ARIN's and the IANA's ability to control and delegate addresses.
You can't have it both ways. Either the IETF process is valid, in which
case the precedents it sets are also valid, or it is not, in which case
none of the existing "organizations" have any validity at all, INCLUDING
THOSE POSTULATED UNDER THE WHITE PAPER AND THE IANA2 DOCUMENTS.
Which would you prefer?
Not all RFC's are created equal. RFC 2008 is a BCP. Not everything that
the IETF process produces is ex-cathedra. In particular, RFC 2008 is a
technical recommendation. Any authority that it may have comes from the
fact that it has been adopoted by some organizations as their policy.
You should distinguish between their authority to set their own policies
and the actual document that those policies are based on.
Tony
Karl,
Actually, there's every reason to believe that if you have space from prior
to the adoption of RFC2008 and 2050 you indeed do have something which is
(1) property, and (2) valuable if someone is willing to pay you for it.
As has been demonstrated repeatedly on this list and elsewhere, there are
people who place not-insignificant value on addresses. The pragmatic among
us would probably argue that even after 2008/2050 or any other
pronouncement by any involved party, address space has value and in fact
has had and will have value as long as it provides an opportunity for a
service that has value. Arguments to the contrary are approximately
equivalent to arguing the tide should not come in 'cause it messes up our
nice sand castles.
Regards,
-drc
Karl,
They have all of the legal weight of a Jim Flem-o-gram.
Then so does ARIN's and the IANA's ability to control and delegate addresses.
No. ARIN (et al) and the IANA have the ability to control/delegate
addresses because by and large, the people who use the Internet, in
particular, Internet service providers, mutually agree they have that
ability. In other words, the registries are an (arguably) neutral forum
which allow end users and service providers to agree who "owns" what
address space instead of establishing who has the ability to use addresses
in an n^2 multi-lateral fashion. As the Internet service provider
community has found it easier to use the registries to impose certain
policies/restrictions than to implement those restrictions themselves
unilaterally, the registries have become the body that implements
allocation policies. If you do not like these policies, your argument is
with the Internet service provider community, which strangely enough, now
is explicitly in a position to modify those policies.
Regards,
-drc
Sure addresses have intrinsic value, BUT the problem is that attempting
to effect the transfer of title is an exercise in futility given that
none of the regional registeries will honour the transaction.
Now given that the original 'owner' details remain constant, it raises
the interesting question of how many suckers can be conned into the
buying the same class B. The Broklyn Bridge is a useful precedent here, btw.
With a means of registering the transaction, the value of the address
space in the current trading market remains heavily discounted.
Unfortunately this trading makes a mockery of the validity of the
allocation registeries, and the longer we sit in denial mode over
address trading the more probable the problems ISPs will face over
attempting to trace actual address ownership, in order to avoid
senseless litigation over incorrect address advertisements in the
routing space.
Geoff
I dunno, considering that the White Paper process is in critical care ICU,
at the moment, and the USG may be hi-jacking the Internet in general.
That's a real interesting question. If you've been keeping up with the
ICANN issue, and read their Article/by-laws, you'd be wondering the same
thing. You might want to drop by the http://www.open-rsc.org web-site, or
see what's been happening in DOMAIN-POLICY. FYI: I've been involved with
the IFWP process through ORSC/IRSC and support the Boston Working Group
(BWG) proposal. Draft 5 Postel is unacceptable to me and anyone else
running a gTLD registry, IMHO.
As regards the IETF, the RFC's have always been mis named, as they are
really defacto InterNet standards. However, note that there is no
enforcement. They are NOT a matter of law. In most cases, they are only
superficailly complied with. Besides which, most of those standards are
along the lines of "If you want to do this, and you want to internetwork
with others in this, then this is how you do it". IETF is not a regulatory
standards body and don't wish to be. This is why their documents are
*called* RFCs, n'est pas?
Mostly, MHSC uses the RFCs as a best-practices document set. If we find a
better way to do something that fits in our operations plans better, then
that's what we'll do. Take RFC2010 for instance. We're re-writing that for
internal use, as it's not cost-effective with hardware and modern
operational practices/software/systems. We *may* submit the final as an
upgrade to 2010.
Are regards ARIN and IANA, their only jurisdiction is the public InterNet.
Internally, with NAT and VPNs, most ISPs assign their own addresses.
Karl,
>> They have all of the legal weight of a Jim Flem-o-gram.
>Then so does ARIN's and the IANA's ability to control and delegate addresses.
No. ARIN (et al) and the IANA have the ability to control/delegate
addresses because by and large, the people who use the Internet, in
particular, Internet service providers, mutually agree they have that
ability.
That's nice David.
What you're saying then is that any group of people can get together,
and effectively exert monopoly, oligopoly, or otherwise create control
structures in a cartel-like environment over the Internet.
Uh, no. Not in the US anyway.
If you do not like these policies, your argument is
with the Internet service provider community, which strangely enough, now
is explicitly in a position to modify those policies.
Actually, no, they are not. I believe that it is fair to say that the
majority of ISPs do not support these policies.
Karl,
What you're saying then is that any group of people can get together,
and effectively exert monopoly, oligopoly, or otherwise create control
structures in a cartel-like environment over the Internet.
Uh, no. Not in the US anyway.
Ah, then ARIN is a figment of my imagination then. As are the IETF, IEEE,
W3C, the ATM Forum, Lockheed Martin (or whoever is running the NANP now),
etc. Thanks for pointing this out.
You, as an end user or ISP are free to use whatever addresses you care to
for whatever purposes you'd like. Of course, other end users and/or ISPs
may not care to acknowledge your use of that address space unless there is
some mutually agreeable mechanism that defines who "owns" what. The
registries provide that mechanism. You (or I) may not like all the
policies those organizations use to administer the resources they are
responsible for, however its a dirty job -- somebody's gotta do it. The
registries were tagged "it" 'cause ISPs couldn't find anyone else to clean
up after 'em.
I believe that it is fair to say that the
majority of ISPs do not support these policies.
Then why don't they join ARIN and change the policies? Oh, wait. Forgot.
ARIN doesn't exist.
Regards,
-drc
Oh, I'm quite certain that the "registries" will recognize a court order,
which, if they refuse to recognize a reassignment, is precisely what they
*should* be forced to recognize.
The danger of applying for a court order is that you get the registry's
lawyers involved. At that point it becomes a legal battle that will be
decided in front of a judge and if that judge is in the USA, it will cost
you a pretty penny regardless of whether you win or lose. Since there is
virtually no case law to set legal precedent, it will be extremely
difficult for a company to win a legal case against the registries.
And what it all boils down to is simply this.
A. Sprint won't listen to small adress block announcements.
B. It is hard for a network with a small address block assignment to
multihome, in fact they are at a disadvantage compared to their
competitors.
C. Trade is being restrained.
My advice in this instance would be to sue Sprint for antitrust violations
because if you win then you get triple damages awarded and Sprint
definitely has the bank account to pay out on the award. Forget the
registries. They are just trying to do the best they can in the awkward
situation that was created by Sprint.
I don't think "the courts will resolve this mess" is a reasonable or
likely response given the larger international context in which this
address allocation resides.
As a counter point, I'm equally certain that the "registries" will have
a difficult time figuring out _which_ court has jurisdiction in any given
dispute, given that the planet seems to be stuffed to the brim of both
courts and lawyers
The problem is that address prefixes _are_ being traded, and as the registry
policies do not recognize this activity, the task for an ISP to validate
a client's request to route an arbitrary address prefix is largely one of
uninformed guesswork. I'm sure most ISPs would see the potential for
liability in such a situation. But I do not see the courts as the
means of resolving this situation. Yes we need a more realistic registry role
where the registry role is more akin to that of a title registration
office, but the courts will not provide us the wherewithal to get to
that point with a set of processes and tools which support an accurate
routing system where each routing entry can be authenticated to its
current "owner".
You can call me a faithless heathen if you want, but I just don't see
why the legal process should have any deeper insight into solving this
problem than the rest of us weenies!
Geoff
talk is cheap, as we demonstrate daily on this mailing list by those without
procmail replying to the usual sociopaths.
otoh, there has been actual action.
for those who may not remember last year, at the request of a registry, a
number of isps refused announcements by a few folk advertising space which
had not been allocated to them. this was sufficient to achieve the desired
result, they stopped announcing space that was not theirs.
i would be interested in other actual real data points, but not the usual
<bleep>s blowing hot air out of both ends.
randy
Michael,
My advice in this instance would be to sue Sprint for antitrust violations
because if you win then you get triple damages awarded and Sprint
definitely has the bank account to pay out on the award. Forget the
registries. They are just trying to do the best they can in the awkward
situation that was created by Sprint.
Wow. You're _really_ confused.
The situation wasn't created by Sprint, it was created by the lack of self
control on the part of the other ISPs. Remember when the filters were
first instituted. Remember the growth of the routing tables. Remember the
maximum routing load the routers back then could handle.
The registries _relied_ on Sprint's filters to give some teeth to "it's a
real good idea to go to your upstream". Sprint (read: Sean Doran) was the
ONLY isp to have the cajones to risk outrage to try to limit the
proliferation of long prefixes. If it wasn't for Sprint's filters, there
would have been only registry whining as back pressure limiting the
allocation of provider independent prefixes. Geuss what: whining wasn't
particularly effective. RIPE-NCC and APNIC instituted fees for cost
recovery, and these had the side effect to limit organizations approaching
those registries for resources. InterNIC (at the time) was not able to
follow suit. Given the IAB's RFC 1814, there was _very_ little that
discouraged every Tom, Dick, and Mary consisting of two modems in a dorm
room that called themselves an "ISP" (or not) from demanding address space
from InterNIC. With the unilateral imposition of filters by Sprint there
was concrete evidence that prefixes longer than /19 were perhaps not a good
idea, thereby encouraging folk to go to their upstreams thus limiting the
proliferation of long prefixes.
Yeah, let's sue.
Frankly, with comments like this, I feel Sprint is approaching terminal
stupidity for keeping the filters in place. I'm sure they have a lovely
business case for keeping the filters active (or they wouldn't have lasted
this long), but at some point, natural selection has to be allowed to
function. I also think the registries should actually be registries and
not try to be the Internet's mommy. Internet service providers (or those
who think they are Internet service providers) ought to clean up their own
messes for a change instead of relying on Sprint and the registries to do
it for them. After all, everyone has a god-given inalienable right to
portable addresses, no?
Disgustedly,
-drc
[somewhat irrelevant history lesson deleted]
Yeah, let's sue.
Frankly, with comments like this, I feel Sprint is approaching terminal
stupidity for keeping the filters in place.
This is precisely my point. History is nice but it lives in the past. We
live in today and Sprint's filters are a pretty clear indication that
Sprint's management believes it can get away with manipulating the market.
Smart managers would have gotten rid of those filters when the technical
necessity for them disappeared. Smart managers would have sat down with
their industry colleagues in a neutral forum like ARIN and made sure that
their *TECHNICAL* policies were in sync with the need for stability and
managed change. The policies that once were technical policies instituted
by Sean Doran are no longer technical policies but a crass manipulation of
the marketplace to Sprint's advantage as the archives of this list prove
quite amply.
I'm sure they have a lovely
business case for keeping the filters active (or they wouldn't have lasted
this long)
Indeed they do. Just look at the archives of this list. Someone complains
about not being able to get a /19 and they are advised to make sure that
one of their upstreams is Sprint. This is a clear violation of antitrust
laws and Sprint management knows this fact and although they were advised
4 months ago to get rid of the filters, they have not acted.
I also think the registries should actually be registries and
not try to be the Internet's mommy.
IMHO it is part of an IP registry's job to make sure that applications for
IP address space meet the publicly agreed upon criteria. And if that
criteria says that you need to justify the quantity of addresses you
receive, it may be mommy work but it is necessary work. But I want to know
why ARIN cannot simply issue an appropriately sized portable block of
addresses to anyone who is legitimately multihomed? Why can't ARIN
maintain a register of companies who are multihomed and tag their IP
allocations, of whatever size, as "portable". I suppose we could sidestep
Sprint and use the swamp addresses which Sprint filters on a /24 boundary.
But why can't we just carve off a chunk of 214/8 and "register" it to
organizations who need portable space in chunks smaller than /19?
This just makes too much sense to me.
many isps filter. when we get time, we plan to make ours even more
restrictive.
randy
Michael, I am technically oriented, but my experience is at the local ISP
level, and I've never done any kind of infrastructure planning. So maybe I
am missing something here, but I still fail to see why on God's green earth
Progressive Networks needs a /19 besides the fact that they might not get
announced otherwise. They aren't going to *use* that many addresses. Is
Sprint the only backbone with a policy of not announcing small blocks? (I'm
not responsible for the maintenance of any BGP feeds, either. 
Everyone always talks about NSPs that won't listen to small address
announcements. Does anyone know of other providers besides Sprint that are
in fact enforcing similar policies?
Tim