[ppml] Policy Proposal: IPv4 Transfer Policy Proposal

[Tom Vest]

On Feb 13, 2008, at 10:35 PM, Randy Bush wrote:

> all in all, this proposal and much of the discussion feels to me as if
> it has an underlying subtext of "this is bad and the people doing  
> it are
> bad people, but we know we can't stop them so we're going to impose  
> all
> the obstacles and conditions we think we can get away with."
>
> aside from global engineering issues of routing impact minimization  
> and
> operational issues of ensuring fair and valid transfers, why do we  
> need
> to place silly restrictions such as "you can only get one bathroom  
> pass
> in a given class period," "you can't share your lunch with a foreign
> friend," etc?
>
> the mpa and riaa are teaching our children that it's normal to be
> criminals.  let's not do the same to our operational peers.

Hi Randy,

It seems to me that the MPAA and RIAA are attempting to "enclose" old  
turf using the excuse of a new threat -- new digital reproduction/ 
transmission technology. They're trying to assert new exclusive  
rights over value that had been (at least for a few decades) more or  
less accessible, on a nonexclusive basis, to the general public. If  
they're actually teaching our children to disregard the law, is there  
any antecedent for that other than the fact that they employ  
lobbyists who are especially good at manipulating the rules and  
rulemakers?

Perhaps this looks like more evidence for the orthodox libertarian  
argument: since rules are rulemakers are fallible, and susceptible to  
corruption or manipulation, they should all be abolished. However, if  
market power is real, fungible power (and it seems blatantly obvious  
to me), then I hardly think that eliminating the rules is going to  
help matters much. If the law didn't exist, then the RIAA/MPAA  
couldn't commandeer it to make our children into criminals -- but  
then nothing would prevent them from shacking up with their  
facilities-owning friends and making it physically impossible for our  
children to do, or eventually think, anything that they didn't  
explicitly permit. If "do what thou wilt" sounds good to individual  
libertarians, I can't even begin to imagine how attractive it must be  
for fabulously wealthy and powerful artificial persons.

Sometimes rules are unjust or inefficient, and rulebreakers can claim  
the moral high ground. Sometimes not, and the rulebreakers are just  
crooks. It's not the fact of rules, or the identity of the  
rulemakers, but rather the intent, substance, direct and indirect  
costs and benefits (and who suffers or enjoys them), and likelihood  
of success that determines their just or unjustness.


> address space transfer is going to be an ever-increasing part of  
> normal
> life;

You are almost certainly right on this point.

> get over it.

Okay.

> our job is to make internet operations simple and easy.

For whom? For would-be buyers or sellers on day one, would-be buyers  
and sellers on day two of thereafter, or for some even broader set of  
direct and indirect stakeholders?
When the community recognized that address resources were "scarce",  
they opted to create systems that sought to balance the needs and  
pressures of the present against the expectation of similar needs and  
demands in the future. It's not at all clear to me that the  
exhaustion of the unallocated free pool invalidates that overall  
mandate, even if it eventually has to be pursued by different  
institutions using different tools. I wish we could reorient these  
arguments toward answering real questions, rather than simply  
declaring that the future is already (narrowly) determined and  
doubters should just get out of the way.

TV


> randy
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