[ppml] Proposed Policy: IPv4 Countdown

[Howard, W. Lee]

Ted, I can't tell from your tone whether you're trying to rant
or make constructive contributions. 


> Your welcome.  If you really want my $0.02 on this you need 
> to work out several "baby step" proposals.

If you can make it to the public policy meeting, you could 
get some feedback on these pre-proposals at the open policy
forum.  I beg anyone who wants to discuss potential policy 
approaches to IPv4 exhaustion to come to the open policy 
forum.  It'd be nice if you'd let policy at arin.net know ahead
of time.

If you can't make it, you can still email ideas to PPML.

 
> The first would be one to define an orderly way to bring 
> abandoned space into the sheepfold so it could be added to 
> the pool of IPv4 available to be allocated.

I would love to see a policy proposal on this.
ARIN does reclaim "abandoned" space if you mean, "Space assigned/
allocated to organizations who no longer exist or who no longer
want that space."  Non-payment of renewals starts staff looking 
for any live contact; that's part of the reason for renewal fees.

> The second would be one to define additional requirements for 
> justification submittal.  One of the biggest and most obvious 
> would be that if an IPv4 allocation holder was to be acquired 
> by another IPv4 allocation holder - regardless of whether 
> both allocation holders were in the same number registry or 
> not - that the acquiring party would have to submit 
> justification for holding the acquired block.

http://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#eight
8.1 Transfers
ARIN will consider requests for the transfer of IP space only upon
receipt of evidence that the new entity has acquired the assets which
had, as of the date of the acquisition or proposed reorganization,
justified the current entity's use of the IP space.

Examples follow in the NRPM.  I read this to mean that if you
buy a network, the need for address space for that network 
does not change.  Please, though, send a proposal.

> The third would be one to define a mechanism that IANA could 
> offer a "bounty" for proof of deliberate criminal contract 
> violations that is similar to what the SPA and BSA offer for 
> reporting software piracy.  In other words if an admin at a 
> network was ordered to "hoard" assignments he could rat out 
> the network and trigger an IP number audit.

That's an interesting idea.  It might be easier to limit it
to ARIN, rather than IANA.  Could you make this a proposal?

> You just do not 
> understand how many people right now have a vested interest 
> in allowing the train wreck to happen.  Honestly, they WANT 
> it to happen.

I don't understand.  Who?

> If you think about it you might begin to understand one of 
> the reasons that the large orgs are rather diffident about
> IPv6 switchover, and are very lackadasical about turning in 
> unused allocations.  They aren't stupid, even boneheads know 
> that if they have something that is constrained, it is worth 
> money to someone.

I don't know any large orgs that are diffident about IPv6.  They
all seem concerned, to various degrees, and most are active.  I
don't know anyone who is hoarding in hopes of selling.

> If the Internet Registries do nothing of course they will be 
> criticized.  But if they do anything then they are going to 
> also be criticized.  Thus, why bother since your going to be 
> screwed either way?  Better to hold on to what you have now 
> and hope when the storm hits that you can hang on.

The Internet Registries is us.  Send proposals.
 
> Ask yourself this.  What do you think that IANA in it's heart 
> of hearts wants to be doing in 2012?  Do you think they want 
> to be fighting a hundred lawsuits by organizations that they 
> are telling that they are going to take away allocations from 
> and give to someone else?  Or do you think they would rather 
> be sitting back mediating between organizations that want to 
> make lawful monetary transactions with each other - I have/you buy.

The IANA doesn't get a vote.  People on this list decide.

> It makes perfect sense to me.  It is a textbook technical 
> response to a political problem.  And it will fail in a 
> textbook manner, as all technical responses to political 
> problems fail.

It's a political problem in the sense that we may not have
the right policies in place.  Propose some.

> the problem isn't that 
> there's a lack of IPv4 numbers, the problem is that not 
> enough people have adopted IPv6 that they can start pushing 
> for the Internet to be switched over.  Those people really 
> and truly want an IPv4 train wreck if for no other reason 
> that they can point to it and say "see, I told you that you 
> should have switched over"

This is the part I don't understand.  
People are not adopting IPv6, because they want to create a
market for IPv4 addresses, so that they can say, "I told you 
to adopt IPv6."  If this is important to the policy process,
could you clarify?

> Ted

Lee