[ppml] Reclamation (Was: Proposed Policy: PI assignments for V6)

[Howard, W. Lee]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ppml at arin.net [mailto:owner-ppml at arin.net] On 
> Behalf Of Owen DeLong
> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 11:56 AM
> To: Michael.Dillon at radianz.com; ppml at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [ppml] Proposed Policy: PI assignments for V6
> 
> --On Wednesday, December 8, 2004 12:07 PM +0000 
> Michael.Dillon at radianz.com 
> wrote:
> 
> >> Right... The v4 swamp was assigned before CIDR.  The v4 swamp also 
> >> has absolutely no right of reclamation or annual renewal.  
> Addresses 
> >> issued prior to the RIR system CAN NOT be taken away from 
> the people 
> >> that have them.  Those people do not pay annual fees for 
> them.  That 
> >> is a very different case from what would happen under this policy 
> >> with v6.

Earlier this year, the Board agreed to begin billing the annual maintenance
fee to organizations holding numbers assigned before ARIN, if and when that
organization requested service from ARIN (like IN ADDR or WHOIS changes).
Implementation has been delayed while some integration projects are
completed.

This was my idea--I'm the villain.

> > I disagree. If there is ever a real crunch on the IPv4 
> address space 
> > then we most certainly will impose annual fees on the swamp and/or 
> > reclaim and reissue those addresses. This is no different 
> from domain 
> > names which once were free and now are not. IP addresses are not 
> > property. Nobody owns them. The right to use IP addresses 
> derives from 
> > the community of Internet users and is coordinated by those users 
> > through the RIR system.
> 
> Under what authority?  You have no right.  Those addresses 
> were assigned under an agreement that said they were assigned 
> in perpetuity.  Any attempt by any collection of ISPs or 
> others to prevent them reasonable access to the internet 
> under terms available to any other RIR/ICANN/NIC assigned 
> block would be a violation of law, at least in the US.

It could be an interesting legal battle.  I haven't seen contracts for
assignments made before ARIN, so I can't say whether they were made in
perpetuity.  But I don't believe ARIN is required to provide IN-ADDR
delegations or WHOIS services for organizations with which is has no
relationship.  Other than cessation of those services, what would
reclaimation look like?

 
> The v4 swamp is the v4 swamp.  Draining it would require voluntary 
> cooperation
> of the address owners.  You might or might not get that.  
> Certainly, you 
> will
> meet rather fierce opposition if you attempt to simply impose it.

If ARIN reclaimed all unused address space, (since I'm sure nobody proposed
reclaiming address space that's being used) how much would we prolong the
life of IPv4?  I suspect it would be less than a year.

Lee

> 
> Owen
>