[arin-ppml] Reclaiming unused IPv4 space (WAS: Draft Policy 2010-10 (Global Proposal):GlobalPolicy for IPv4 Allocations by the IANA Post Exhaustion- Last Call (textrevised))

[Jim Fitzgerald]

On Nov 3, 2010, at 9:20 AM, John Curran wrote:

> On Nov 3, 2010, at 9:06 AM, Chris Grundemann wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 23:08, John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> As noted earlier, there is significant interest in reclaiming resources from organizations which are defunct.  Presently, there is a lack of policy in this area, so ARIN has no direction to "pressure those who may be squatting on unused space simply because they signed up for it in 1990".  We do occasionally see attempts to hijack such space, and can revoke subsequent to a fraud report, and may soon have some recovery of blocks when they have no valid POCs, but at present the most likely path that completely unused space with active contact is going to come back into the system is via the specified transfer policy.  I know that may not be your own preference, but it at least results in overall improved IPv4 resource utilization.
>> 
>> Some questions, for my own clarity:
>> 
>> 1) Today, under current policy and practice, if ARIN becomes aware of
>> a block of IPv4 that is assigned/allocated to a defunct organization
>> (and therefor must be unused); you do nothing?
> 
> Chris - There are numerous organizations that may appear to be defunct at first glance, but that does not make such a fact.  If we're notified by a contact from the original organization that they've shutdown, then we do reclaim the associated number resources.  Note that it's also quite possible that an organization has been acquired and no longer operates under the same name or location (but is still using the resources internally) or simply is choosing not to respond to ARIN's queries.
> 

Now, of course in our example.. regardless of organization naming or "whats on paper", the block is still being announced by us.  Checking the global route tables we are the only one announcing the blocks in question and have been for many many years.   Its obviously not "in use", since we're announcing and not routing it and we're the only ones who are.  It simply won't work, so it cannot be "in use" at least not on the global Internet and thats what we're discussing here -- routable IPv4.  I'd be happy to stop announcing the space if that is the direction given by ARIN.  We're just using this live example to suss out what is being done with regards to reclamation in practice.

I guess this brings the related question -- does the community care the status of an organization when it comes to (precious) unused IPv4?  Do we let an organization go out of business, turn down its network, or end up in some indeterminate state, and camp out on a bunch of unused IPv4 simply because they "might exist" somewhere in some form?  If so, how long do we allow that?  My example blocks have been in this state for over 3 years.  Long enough?  Can we look at obvious indicators of use such as presence in the global routing tables?  If I turn down these blocks, they will not appear in the global routing tables any longer.. good enough?

My strong opinion is ARIN needs a stick to reclaim these things.  I am not entirely familiar with all of the politics regarding reclaiming IPv4 but it sure seems to me that these should be the easiest and obvious ones...  if we can't manage this, how will we ever manage the more difficult situations?  I really don't envy the job of the folks at ARIN and appreciate all that they do, but we've got to get this working in a sensible way, its only going to get worse if we don't.

-J

>> 2) Will a POC for an IPv4 block assigned/allocated to a known defunct
>> organization be allowed to authorize transfer of those resources under
>> current policy and practice? What happens if there are multiple POCs?
> 
> See "known defunct" above.
> 
>> 3) If the community adopted a policy which stated that unused
>> resources assigned/allocated to defunct organizations should be
>> reclaimed by ARIN, could ARIN reclaim such space? Would you actively
>> work to?
> 
> As long as we can understand the policy as defined, we will actively follow
> any policy adopted.
> 
> /John
> 
> John Curran
> President and CEO
> ARIn
> 
> 
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