[ppml] Policy Proposal: Resource Reclamation Incentives

[John Santos]

On Tue, 3 Jul 2007 michael.dillon at bt.com wrote:

> 
> >   - Specifically, that their space cannot be revoked for 
> > failing to use
> >     it.
> 
> That is going to be intractable as we get closer to IPv4 exhaustion.
> When ISP X is facing losses of millions of dollars due to the fact that
> ARIN has no more addresses to give, and it is known that ISP Y has an
> unused hoard, then what happens.

Define "used" and "unused".

> 
> Perhaps ISP X simply "borrows" ISP Y's hoard. Will Y go to court and
> argue that X can't do that because ARIN's whois shows that these are Y's
> addresses? Will X argue that Y has no right to addresses because they
> are not an ARIN member and have no contract with ARIN, therefore no
> expectation of service from ARIN? Will the court revoke all of Y's
> addresses? Will the court order Y to return unused addresses to ARIN
> because they are, by proxy, causing ARIN to materially damage X's
> business?

What if Exxon wants to drill for oil in my back yard because, hey,
I'm not doing it.  Am I materially damaging Exxon's profits by not
allowing them to drill?

> 
> The complexity makes your head spin. In general, courts are supposed to
> be a last resort after the parties have sat down, discussed the issue,
> and tried to hammer out an agreement. Can Y really be said to have done
> this if Y has not joined ARIN, signed the RSA, returned excessive unused
> addresses and made and honest attempt to comply with ARIN policy? ARIN
> is not just a 3rd party here; ARIN is the forum in which all parties
> come together and hammer out the mutual agreement to shared these
> limited resources.

Y got its IP addresses according to the rules, before ARIN existed.
ARIN can't just arbitrarily change the rules on them, whatever you
want it to do.

> 
> Organizations which do not enagage with each other in ARIN are the
> rogues who refuse to negotiate.

No, in Y's view, ARIN is the rogue that is trying to change the
rules out from under it.

> 
> It's hard to predict the legal outcomes but one thing is certain, any
> organizations which persist in refusing to join ARIN will suffer the
> consequences of a lot of negative publicity as we get closer to IPv4
> exhaustion. Even if they don't don the black hat and get involved in a
> court case, these organizations will be tarred with a nasty brush. In
> particular the larger ones with class A and B allocations because one
> would expect them to have the most capability for implementing IPv6 and
> reducing their consumption of IPv4 addresses. 

Actually, ARIN's lawyer apparently has predicted the legal outcome, and
his prediction is that ARIN would lose...

> 
> > - Turn in your existing bucket of disjoint small netblocks for
> >   one large, aggregateable netblock.
> 
> Hmmm... Thought experiment.
> Entity A has acquired 300 class C address blocks. None of these are used

Define "used"...

> at all, just acquired. Entity A goes to ARIN and turns in their 300
> class C's in return for a /16 which is 256 /24 equivalents, therefore it
> is less than their original hoard. Now Entity A markets itself to
> organizations who are concerned about the pending IPv4 shortage. They
> manage to rake in 6 figures for their shell company and the buyer gets a
> /16 to use. Sale is timed to close shortly after the buyer gets their
> next ARIN allocation.
> 
> Obviously this could only occur if Entity A does not have to fully
> justify their space. Currently the wording of the policy does allow for
> this loophole.
> 
> I can't help but think that we would make better policy if we started
> out with use-cases and requirements rather than diving straight into the
> specific text of a policy.
> 
> --Michael Dillon
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-- 
John Santos
Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc.
781-861-0670 ext 539