[arin-discuss] ARIN-discuss Digest, Vol 26, Issue 6

[rob servis]

>       On Tue, 21 Jul 2009, Carl Peterson wrote:
>     > I was just going to post the same thing but it is only fair that we
>     > develop a consensus as to when it is ok to blacklist a block for
unfair
>     > use of ip space.  Once we have a quorum of sorts, like minded admins
and
>     > companies should act as a group.
>     > As a basic rule I would start by saying that if a company or group
is
>     > holding a large block of ipv4 which they know they will never use,
the
>     > part that will never be used should be returned.  The ip space that
they
>     > are holding only has value because the rest of us route to it.
>
> How do you propose to know the difference between space which is unused,
> and space which is in use on networks which are not directly routed to the
> portions of the Internet that you can see?
>
> Presuming you cannot see the use that people are putting space to, how
> would your black-holing them penalize them?
>
> Once you and your compatriots black-hole them, presuming they comply with
> your desires and return the space, and it gets doled out to someone else,
> how do you propose to get the space un-black-holed, so you don't just
> penalize the subsequent recipient?
>
> I see a heck of a lot more complaints from people who've recently received
> new space that they can't get people to stop black-holing, than I see
> complaints from people unable to get space.
>
>                                 -Bill

I concur --- this could end up a mess if routes started getting blackholed.
Although a controlled use of a coordinated facility like the BOGON system
could be okay if it is BGP based.

There is a presumption here that the 'unused' space is somehow contiguous
and therefore even possible to return in any meaningful size chunks.

Telcos and NPA/NXX assignments had a similar problem to solve.  CLECs were
given entire exchanges (10,000 blocks of numbers) until NANPA realized this
was not going to be sustainable with the number of new CLECs asking for
numbers.  They then cut assignments back to 1,000 blocks of numbers and in
some cases asked CLECs to give back 9,000 phone numbers.  By then the CLECs
had given out numbers throughout the entire 10,000 number range (everyone
wants 1111 or 2222).  It caused some customer service issues and definitely
a lot of time and energy to accomplish that relinquishment.

Returning IPs from these big blocks may be just as problematic ... a /22
here, a /24 there.  This could be a mess.

Rob Servis
RASER, Inc.