[ppml] Counsel statement on Legacy assignments?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:ppml-bounces at arin.net]On Behalf Of
>Jeremy H. Griffith
>Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 5:14 PM
>To: ppml at arin.net
>Subject: Re: [ppml] Counsel statement on Legacy assignments?
>
>
>On Thu, 4 Oct 2007 16:29:09 -0700, "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm at ipinc.net>
>wrote:
>
>>>From: Jeremy H. Griffith
>>>Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 3:46 PM
>>>
>>>On Thu, 4 Oct 2007 15:25:09 -0500, "Stephen Sprunk"
>>><stephen at sprunk.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Where is this counsel statement?
>>>>
>>>>http://www.arin.net/meetings/minutes/ARIN_XIX/ppm1_transcript.ht
>ml#anchor_13
>>>>
>>>>"MR. RYAN: I've thought a little bit about what a stick might look like
>>>>here. So for example, it's very clear to me that denial of
>service by ARIN
>>>>is legally permitted. In other words, I don't believe we, as
>the non-profit
>>>>trying to carry out the community's wishes, have a duty to provide free
>>>>services for legacy address holders. And the denial of those
>free services
>>>>to legacy address holders pursuant to their lack of agreement
>is perfectly
>>>>permitted, in my judgment, as a matter of law."
>>>
>>>Perhaps not, but it would put ARIN right in the middle of
>>>this ICANN issue:
>>>
>>><http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArtic
>leBasic&articleId=302552>
>>>
>>
>>What issue?  The controversy here concerns whois on domain names, not
>>whois records on IP address block assignments.
>
>They are related.  The primary concern in the domain-name issue is
>one of accountability.  If ARIN dropped the WHOIS services for the
>address block assignments to legacy users, that accountability is
>broken.  All someone has to do is use a legacy IP number instead of
>a domain name, and they become effectively untraceable for anyone not
>in LE or the NSA...  ;-)  So one result of such a policy would be to
>raise the value of such addresses on the black market.  Not a good
>idea, IMHO.
>

A great many networks will not accept advertisements from people
who do not have a listing for the blocks they want to advertise in
WHOIS.  And, any admin of any network who is worried about traffic from
black market addresses can simply elect to block out networks that are
not visible in WHOIS.  So I don't see that it would raise the value
of them on the black market.

In any case, speaking about the black market, I can assure you that
the criminal Pishers can obtain all of the compromised machines that
they want.  An entire industry exists of people who are paid to break into
machines.  An IP address by itself isn't much good, it has to have
connectivity and CPU time available on a machine with it, in order to
become a problem.

IMHO withholding WHIS on IPv4 legacy numbering only has value when it is
used
on a case-by-case basis, to prod a legacy holder into either giving up
a block they aren't using, or more efficiently using a block that they
have.

Ted