Things that need to be addressed

I think that we need to go back to the basics (which were in the first few
posts) and define the scope of the problem that we are trying to resolve
with this policy. I believe Alec's point was that in order to have an
effective policy it must be created to solve a specific issue and not try to
solve all issues with one policy. Policies are usually made to either change
or modify the behavior of certain individuals (or companies) and with that
in mind, policy makers must try their best to be fair to the greatest number
of individuals (or companies)with the least amount of disruption possible.
So with that in mind we should determine the following:

1. What is the exact problem that needs to be fixed?
2. What is the best way to solve that problem?
3. What are the issues that would prevent us from setting a policy based on
the best solution? and how do we deal with those issues? 

There are several ways to deal with the issues, they can be accounted for in
the policy if they are within the scope of the actual problem, they can be
ignored as out of scope, they can be addressed with the individuals (or
companies) that find them to be issues etc.....

BTW, I agree that ARIN cannot (and to the best of my knowledge has not) base
it's policy on the actions of others but rather on the scope of the problem
that the members have determined requires fixing.


-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Pierce [mailto:Steve.Lists at HDL.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2000 5:46 PM
To: ARIN List
Subject: RE: Things that need to be addressed


Alec wrote:
>> That is specious reasoning, Steve.

Alec, you said, "ARIN simply cannot base it's policy on the actions of
others." I was simply pointing out that ARIN has already done what you said
they couldn't or shouldn't do. So there is already a precedent for
considering what other organizations do.

The point of this list is to work out a plan for virtual hosting address
allocation. From what I have seen posted so far, the sense I get is:
A) filters are not a problem that ARIN should try to deal with
B) even if filters are a problem, it is a problem best solved by the filter
companies not ARIN.

If this is the case, then lets move forward with ip-les addressing for
virtual hosts. Like I said before, I support ip-less addressing for web
hosts and I think it is good for the Internet community. But I suspect the
policy in it's current form, if it ignores the impact of filtering, may be
ineffective.

The post was made about a two weeks ago that we should outline the issues.

The issues I bring up is in addition to the ones already put forth by others
1) Address allocation and reclamation
-- Point was made that this list body can't do anything about that and for
those interested, see other ARIN list on this subject. OK, that is fair, but
it is still an issue and we shouldn't ignore it. I suggest that anything we
develop or propose body should include a statement recognizing that any long
term solution needs to address a policy of address reclamation.

2) Filter companies policies and practices can make it very difficult and in
some cases impossible to conduct business using virtual hosting with ip-less
address scheme.
-- Point was made that ARIN simply cannot base its allocation policies on
the actions of other organizations. I disagree.

To say that ARIN should not concern itself with other companies policies and
business practices seems to be short-sighted. If we don't consider the
smaller carrier or hosting company as well as the impacts filters have on
the Internet and IP address allocation, we risk creating a policy that is
ineffective.

I suspect that dealing with filters and their impact on address allocation
may force us to deal with more difficult issues than we are really prepared
to. In that case, it might be worthwhile to call this discussion specious
rather actually dealing with the problems at hand.

Cheers!

 - Steve

Steve Pierce, HDL
Direct: (734) 482-9682
mailto:Steve at HDL.com | http://HDL.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Alec H. Peterson [mailto:ahp at hilander.com]
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 7:42 PM
To: Steve Pierce
Cc: ARIN List
Subject: Re: Things that need to be addressed


Steve Pierce wrote:
>
> But we must. In fact, we are already forced into making new regulations
> about IP address blocks because other organizations do not want to give up
> their un-needed or under-utilized IP blocks. So ARIN is most definitely
> already basing policies on the actions of other organizations.

That is specious reasoning, Steve.

I am not going to continue this discussion, but others are free to do so.

Alec

--
Alec H. Peterson - ahp at hilander.com
Staff Scientist
CenterGate Research Group - http://www.centergate.com
"Technology so advanced, even _we_ don't understand it!"