[ppml] IANA is dead!?

[Michael.Dillon at radianz.com]

Does anyone have any recent evidence to suggest that IANA still exists and 
functions?

I tried to contact them about a month ago and have received only a single 
reply from someone stating that they would review my email and get back to 
me at some indeterminate future date. Apparently ICANN is supposed to be 
running the "IANA function" under contract to the U.S. government but I've 
been unable to detect any "function" at all.

Theoretically, IANA is supposed to hold the root responsibility for all of 
the IPv4 address space, but apparently they are unwilling to communicate 
with anyone about IP addresses other than RIR officials. This does not 
seem terribly responsible to me.

I want to discuss the possibility of setting up a non-RIR registry similar 
the the 24/8 deal with the cable industry and the 57/8 deal with the air 
traffic industry. In my case I work in an industry (financial services) 
that has global networking requirements between many companies. However, 
these networks are somewhat different from the Internet. For one thing, 
they are not connected directly to the Internet. For another thing, the 
companies who interconnect are terribly interested in knowing who has 
registered addresses and who is using them and for what. In other words, 
filtering and ACLs all over the place.

It is my assertion that this industry would be better served by having a 
global address registry separate from the RIRs. Before I start making the 
rounds of the various network operators in this industry to discuss this 
idea, I would like to find out under what circumstances it would be 
possible to proceed. If IANA cannot do this any more, then where is the 
joint RIR body who can discuss this issue?

P.S. Financial Services refers to banking, stock exchanges, fund 
management, forex, trading networks, etc...

-------------------------------------------------------
Michael Dillon
Capacity Planning, Prescot St., London, UK
Mobile: +44 7900 823 672    Internet: michael.dillon at radianz.com
Phone: +44 20 7650 9493    Fax: +44 20 7650 9030