[ARIN-consult] Consultation on ARIN Fees

[Owen DeLong]

Sure, but lots of people repeatedly talk about ARIN (and other RIRs) as if their policy is law.

I think it is important for the community to remember and be aware fo the true status and the
actual power structure rather than assume that the RIRs are some form of governmental
authority.

I don’t want governmental authority in charge of numbering (which would most likely take
the form of an ITU takeover of the process), but I do want people to be aware of the
true balance of power in that if an RIR oversteps its role as a registry too far or becomes
too egregious in its actions, the community of those who control routers is utterly and
completely free to replace it and there is precious little that ICANN or the RIRs would
be able to do about it.

I do not think things have reached that point and I am not advocating forking the internet
at this time, but I also don’t think it is a good idea to let misunderstandings of this true
nature stand, either.

Owen


> On Jul 22, 2021, at 07:39 , Adam Thompson <athompso at athompso.net> wrote:
> 
> Yes, I agree, but so what? There are MANY things in daily life, or affecting daily life, that turn out to be governed by assumptions, working consensus, "gentlemen's agreements", and community norms, instead of being regulated under the force of law.
> ARIN and the entire NRO system is hardly unique, or even special, in this regard. We follow the RIR model because it's easier to do that than to fork the entire internet.
> -Adam
> 
> On July 22, 2021 12:01:14 a.m. CDT, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Jul 21, 2021, at 14:32 , Adam Thompson <athompso at athompso.net> wrote:
> 
> On 2021-07-21 16:15, William Herrin wrote:
> Unless you're planning to change ARIN's quarter-century practice of
> risk aversion toward letting cases proceed to the point where a court
> sets a precedent about the shape of the pre-ARIN registrants' rights?
> I know Owen remembers how far ARIN bent in Microsoft/Nortel to reach
> an agreement, any agreement, rather than let the court set precedent
> with respect to what it could do with Nortel's legacy registration.
> 
> I would like to point out that in this regard, I do not believe ARIN is accurately representing its members' interests.  Perhaps the megacorps that dominate this industry like every other do enjoy the current status, but I know both I, and many other smaller registrants I've spoken over the years, would much prefer that jurisprudence exists, even if it's unfavourable.
> 
> Losing flexibility is a problem, but living in fear is also a problem, and not knowing the real legal status of things like "can legacy registrants claim any rights over IP addresses" is (i.e. not just what the [L]RSA says), is also a problem.  Contracts are not law, and do not have the force of law, until tested.
> 
> It’s a lot more complicated than that and I can speak much more freely since June 8.
> 
> The simple fact of the matter is that reliance on the RIR system for uniqueness of addresses is entirely voluntary and the fact that most ISPs adhere to that system is the only thing that gives it power.
> 
> If a sufficient critical mass of major ISPs decided to wrest control from the RIR system, they could do it in a heart beat simply by creating their own registry and adhering to that instead of the RIR system.
> 
> The RIR system has no basis in law and no legal authority over what integers any given individual types into any given router. They even make this very clear when they tell you that your RIR's allocation/assignment is not guaranteed to be routable.
> 
> The whole thing is a giant house of cards and the only thing that keeps it from collapsing is that they behave just well enough that the alternatives are all too much disruption for too little gain.
> 
> Owen
> 

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