[ppml] Policy Proposal: Resource Reclamation Incentives

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 2, 2007, at 11:26 AM, <michael.dillon at bt.com> wrote:

>
>> 	1.	Legacy holders are not here illegaly.
>
> Legacy holders are violating the rules that the industry has
> collectively agreed upon. The legacy holders are not playing fair.  
> There
> are obviously shades of grey here but the legacy holders are closer to
> being here illegally than those who sign the RSA and pay their
> membership fees.
>
No.  They are not.  The industry has, generally collectively agreed that
legacy holders are grandfathered under a different set of rules. The  
fact
that you don't like this collective decision is another matter.

>> 	2.	Legacy holders can't be deported.
>
> They could be deported, i.e. the legacy resources could be taken away
> from them by suing them in court. I wouldn't recommend doing that at
> this time, but it may be that the industry collectively will decide to
> begin doing that as IPv4 resources become scarcer.
>
Well... According to ARIN's lawyer, we probably wouldn't win on that
one, so, I'm not inclined to believe your statement over that of Steve
Ryan.

>> 	3.	Legacy holders can remain and continue not
>> paying "taxes"
>> 		without any risk because they haven't violated
>> any law/rules.
>
> This is not true. They are in violation of ARIN rules and they run
> several risks. First, they may be seen to be acting unfairly and thus
> lose business. Secondly they may have their addresses reclaimed either
> through operational actions (filtering announcements) or through court
> action. I believe that these risks will increase as IPv4 addresses get
> close to exhaustion.
>
They aren't subject to ARIN rules.  They have no contractual  
relationship
with ARIN and there is no legal basis for claiming that they should be
subject to ARIN rules.  ARIN has no force of law other than the  
contractual
relationships they have with the recipients of ARIN resources.

So far, nobody seems to be boycotting Harvard or MIT because of their
legacy address space.  I don't think such a thing is likely in the  
future.
I don't know of any organization who is losing business because of their
possession of legacy addresses.  Do you?

Secondly, I think operationally, such actions against the larger holders
of legacy addresses (i.e. the ones that matter in terms of this policy)
would be unlikely because, generally, ISPs don't want to piss-off
large clients. Court action has been deemed unlikely to succeed by
someone I am convinced knows way more about it than you do, so,
I think you're wrong on that as well.

As to the risks increasing, well, perhaps, but, I don't think they will
ever increase to meaningful proportions.

>> 	4.	Legacy holders are already exempt from ARIN contracts
>> 		because they never signed one and ARIN is not a
>> governmental
>> 		organization, so, is unable to make "laws"
>> which require actions
>> 		or payments from entities with no contractual
>> relationship.
>
> The law is not that simple. There are such things as common law and  
> case
> law. At least one court has already ruled that an organization must  
> sign
> ARIN's RSA and follow ARIN's rules and policies in order to  
> transfer an
> address allocation from another organization. Unless there are U.S.  
> laws
> that specifically address IP address allocations, it is not clear  
> which
> other laws, existing or new ones, might apply to IP address  
> allocations
> and the ARIN relationships. That kind of thing gets settled in court
> cases which is why it is called case law.
>
While you sort of have that right, you've missed some key points of the
situation...

The ruling was that ARIN was not required to take action outside of  
ARINs
documented processes and procedures.  That ARIN could not be required
to transfer the block unless the recipient organization complied with  
ARINS
policies and procedures.

That is a far cry from implementing ARIN policies on an existing holder
of resources.  I believe the legal term for such an action would be a
"law of ex post facto".  Correct me if I am wrong, but, I believe  
there is
a constitutional prohibition of such things...

Yep... Article 1 section 9...

Section 9.

...

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

...


(from http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article01/)

> I believe that if ARIN did implement any policy granting special  
> waivers
> and benefits to organizations in violation of ARIN's rules and  
> policies,
> that would weaken ARIN's case-law position. That is why I will not
> support any such policy.
>
Perhaps.  I'm discussing that matter with Steve Ryan off-list.  We're
working on finding a way to address the issues in question without
such consequences.

> In fact, given the unlikeliness of an organization going through the
> pain of renumbering to be a good network citizen, I suspect that this
> policy was introduced as an attempt to weaken ARIN's case-law  
> position.
>
You can suspect all you want, but, I can tell you that I am pretty sure
I know better than you the intent of the introduction of this policy.
The intent is to remove some of the barriers to address space  
reclamation
and to encourage legacy holders to begin using IPv6 and join
the ARIN community and process.

Frankly, I find your accusation baseless and offensive.

Owen

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