[ppml] PPML Digest, Vol 22, Issue 12

[Stephen Sprunk]

Thus spake William Herrin
> I'm not so sure its a question of being for or against the propsals.
> Most of the proposed changes strike me as tweaking the
> absurdity of already dysfunctional policies.

While some folks may be inclined to agree with that opinion, the fact is 
that these are the policies that ARIN needs to approve or disapprove at the 
coming meeting, and the cut-off date for new proposals has passed.

> 2006-7: Not too many people WANT IPv6 space just now, so
> what possible difference does it make whether they're qualified
> to get it? Open it up wide and worry about qualifications after
> a reasonable percent of the space is actually in use.
>
> At this point in IPv6's adoption, almost ANY policy is
> counterproductive to its deployment. Play policy wonk if you
> want but don't imagine that doing so helps.

One of the concerns that has been voiced in the past is that opening the 
policies too wide may create a land-rush effect and we'll be forced to 
drastically alter policies in the future, creating a situation where early 
adopters get things that later adopters cannot.  This accusation has been 
repeatedly leveled at the US in particular by folks overseas, since we 
gobbled up most of the IPv4 space before they got on the 'Net, leaving them 
very little.  We're trying to prevent that from happening again, and the 
policies are still so liberal nobody should have any trouble getting v6 
space if they have even the slightest need for it.

Discussion of what to do for people who haven't requested v6 space is 
another topic, and IMHO it's best to postpone that until after the upcoming 
meeting so that we can work on the next round of proposals.

> 2007-1: Why is ARIN still using email for this process anyway?
> 1997 was a long time ago. The process is tailor made for a web
> app, perhaps with email confirmations, and such an app can
> be reasonably locked down irrespective of PGP. Worrying
> about email authentication entirely misses the mark.
>
> 2007-2: Same. See 2007-1.
>
> 2007-3: Same. See 2007-1.

If you only fill out a handful of requests/SWIPs per year, sure.  However, 
larger ISPs may be sending in several hundred per day as customers are 
turned on and off, and they have automated systems that generate the 
templates and send them off without requiring a legion of NOC folks to click 
their way through forms on ARIN's web site.  Ideally one would define some 
sort of RPC mechanism to do this without resorting to email, but the email 
mechanism has been in place for over a decade and won't go away any time 
soon.

> 2007-9: Shouldn't we be doing things to deliberately discourage
> folks from acquiring large quantities of IPv4 space? Plus there's
> a saying I'm fond of: "Your lack of planning is not my emergency."

The policy already exists; this change merely allows ARIN to issue a single 
larger block instead of many smaller blocks.  That's a good thing.  And, as 
the policy notes, this policy shouldn't be used that often anyways, but it's 
nice to have it if you're the one who gets a sudden burst of customer demand 
that blows up the projections you've been basing your occasional requests 
on.

S

Stephen Sprunk      "Those people who think they know everything
CCIE #3723         are a great annoyance to those of us who do."
K5SSS                                             --Isaac Asimov