[ppml] Another question on Policy Proposal 2007-8

The discussion on 2007-8 caused me to ask this question of myself:

What if I am looking to buy a company that has address space.  When 
listing the assets of the company, should the number resources ever 
be included?  The answer, if the space has come from ARIN (or any 
RIR) is no.  But what if the resources were obtained pre-RIR?

Assuming there is a difference between resources obtained from ARIN 
or before ARIN/RIR, can I tell this from ARIN's whois server?  During 
the due diligence phase of acquisition I probably should know if the 
address space comes under ARIN's transfer policy.

Is there anyway to tell if resources fall under an ARIN RSA or under 
any RIR RSA?  I tried to compare the whois entry for MIT's network 
(18.0.0.0/8) which I know has been around a while to something that 
has been more recent but I haven't been able to pull a "direct 
assignment" from the whois.  (Are "direct assignments" still done?)

The first question is - is there a difference, as far as being 
"property", of space handed out pre-RIR and from an RIR.  If the 
difference is "unclear" vs. "not property", I understand.

The second question is - is if there is a difference, how can this be 
determined from whois?

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Edward Lewis                                                +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar

Sarcasm doesn't scale.