[arin-discuss] Legacy RSA

On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 Scott.Shackelford at cox.com wrote:
>  Regardless of the validity or accuracy of of the intent of theses
> threads, they are becoming very counter productive.

I think people such Steve Bertrand have been asking reasonable and
thoughtful questions.  Board Members have been short on facts. Getting
Board Members to produce facts is productive. Explaining the facts known
so far, and persuading members to support removal of Board Members is
productive.

But I am spending way too much time arguing with detractors over
unimportant side issues. I'll try to avoid that.

> The very participation that this mailing list encourages; your tone
> and persistence has begun to remove. Please look around and notice the
> growing number of 'unsubscribes' that have occurred in the recent
> past. There is a direct correlation here.

As Ted noted already, most of the 'unsubscribes' are bogus. (Except for
Mr.  Burling, apparently). They are the result of an anti-spam tool.  
(Who do we know that might use an anti-spam tool for something other
than blocking spam?)

>  Respectfully, I don't know your employment (nor do I need to), but
> you seem to have time in your day for deep research and calculation of
> your topics.

I don't really have a lot of time in my day. But I've already researched
a lot of these things over the last 10 years.  I've been well motivated
to do that research. I started this when I was physically threatened on
Nanog for suggesting that the ECPA applies to ISPs. I knew something was
wrong when no one in authority objected to that. So I thought I better
find out the details of what was going on. Its pretty ugly. Since then,
I'm motivated by having to deal with SORBS blocks a couple times a month
by some company who didn't know better I have to prove to them out
netblocks aren't hijacked. Fortunately most know better.  And I've had
to deal with illegal network disruption (publishing short routes to our
netblocks)  for several days a while back. And other behavior by the
people I've noted. I don't have any other choice but to find out what
they are up to, and why they are attacking me for making reasonable and
true statements.

That's how I came to find out a lot of these things.

And having already found out a lot of things, I can put new things
together pretty fast. For example, I already knew who the major
beneficiaries of NANOG are; I have files on these people, put together
over the last 10 years.  I already knew who Vixie's officemate was,
although he apparently didn't think that possible for me to find out and
had forgotten mentioning it; I had it filed. I have a database of NANOG
attendees, and am planning to build a database of ARIN members to
crossreference the number of ARIN members who participate in NANOG. I
don't think there are many, but I plan to find out the exact number.

The ARIN/NANOG scandal is probably just the final chapter in NANOG; As I
already mentioned, NANOG is dying, starved for funds because so few
attend.  The operations staff in the US alone number in the 10s, perhaps
100s of thousands, yet NANOG never gets more than a few hundred. This is
because of the activities of the core people.  Nanog attendees basically
come in two flavors: Those that come to just a few meetings and then
drop it; and those that come to 14+. There are only about 50 in the
second category. And growth is negative or flat.  If I were to guess,
Merit decided not to continue NANOG at a loss, and Susan Harris when to
Curran et al and said essentially "you benefit, so give me money".  And
they gave her ARIN's money.  That was wrong of them. They will have to
resign. And as you can also see, serious charges have already been filed
once. There seems to be just two possible endings. But it won't
continue.

There is still a lot to learn:  There are other conferences where money
is being wasted.  There are hotel bills for sending ARIN employees to
NANOG. There are lost work days attending NANOG. I don't have exact
values, but these expenses add up. Reducing these expenses means ARIN
fees can go down.  Getting better managers means that other waste can be
found, reduced, or not be wasted in the first place. That stabilizes the
future.

> For those of us that don't have that kind of time, these threads have
> become a menace.

Menace?

> I would encourage you to foster this kind of enthusiasm and vigor
> towards some viable IPv6 solutions.

I have some ideas on that. :-)

And I'm working on a proposal for a low change legacy registry, too.

		--Dean

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