[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal: Whois Authentication Alternatives

[Howard, W. Lee]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net 
> [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of Micah Anderson
> Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 1:43 PM
> To: Kevin Oberman
> Cc: Randy Bush; arin-ppml at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] Policy Proposal: Whois 
> Authentication Alternatives
> 
> * Kevin Oberman <oberman at es.net> [2008-08-26 16:50-0400]:
> > Thanks you, Stephen! Someone finally stated the obvious. A complete 
> > registry is of benefit to everyone. (I think that this is probably 
> > "the commons" to which Randy was referring.) Rest assured that the 
> > $100 is not an issue keeping  most legacy holders from 
> signing the LRSA.
> 
> People keep saying this about the $100, as if this was well 
> established fact, based on some data. Why do people keep 
> asserting this, I'd like to know what I missed. 

Several folks with legacy space have conceded that they wouldn't
object to $100 per year.  I don't recall anyone else saying that
this level of expense was a barrier.  Like the scientific method,
the assumption that $100/year is not an obstacle is based on
available evidence, but if additional evidence is provided, the
theory can be revised.

> Personally, I'd like a clear idea of the costs involved to 
> run whatever service I am getting before I would say if $100 
> was a good number or not. It may seem small to people with 
> large corporate budgets, but small non-profit organizations 
> tend to be misers with good reason. Until I've seen good 
> reason, I am not interested in spending $100/year.

ARIN publishes its annual budget.
http://www.arin.net/about_us/corp_docs/budget.html

I believe the fee to be nominal, just enough to encourage
organizations to check their records before sending in a check.
I think that if you consider the costs of running IN-ADDR and
WHOIS servers, with high availability and bandwidth, plus the
support of the public policy development process, coordination
with other organizations, and outreach (for instance, to legacy
resource holders to let them know what's going on, or to everyone
about the need for IPv6), $100 is pretty reasonable.

An argument has been made that if one can't afford $100/year, one
is unlikely to be able to afford the equipment requiring those
addresses.  An argument could also be made that an alternative
exists: get address space (free) from an upstream.  I don't usually 
make those arguments.

Disclosure:  I'm ARIN's Treasurer, and chair the Finance Committee.
But I didn't ask them their opinion of this message.

Lee