[arin-ppml] Legacy Space authority (fwd)

[Dean Anderson]

For some reason, this didn't go through.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 15:43:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dean Anderson <dean at av8.com>
To: Ray Plzak <plzak at arin.net>
Cc: "ppml at arin.net" <ppml at arin.net>
Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] Legacy Space authority

On Fri, 2 May 2008, Ray Plzak wrote:

> Before the RIRs it was the Internet Registry (IR) which was known as
> the DDN NIC (until 1993) and then the InterNIC (1993-1997) that
> allocated/assigned IP address space to ISPs and end users. All of the
> organizations that operated a version of the Internet Registry were
> doing so under a US government contract. ICANN arrived on the scene
> after the Internet Registry was supplanted by the RIRs and is not in
> this chain of succession.

This statement about ICANN isn't entirely accurate. While it is true
that ICANN was created after the RIRs, ICANN operates IANA, the
government function that assigns IP address space.  IANA precedes the
RIRs and is the successor to DDN NIC and ARPA registry function.  ICANN
operates the US Government IANA function as a government contractor,
just like SRI previously operated nic.ddn.mil (the DDN NIC).

Legacy's got their space from the government. So did the RIRs. Those 
blocks are intangible property, just exactly like domain names. 

ARIN provides two functions: 1) It operates a portion of the government
infrastructure function (whois and IN-ADDR) and holds the paper records
which belong to the government.  2) ARIN has another function: the
delegation of IP address space. In that function, it is sort of like the
"ISP of last resort". The space delegated by the second function is the
intangible property of ARIN, and those who recieve this delegated space
don't get any property rights in that space.

For Legacy's, ARIN is merely the registrar of deeds.  Like the registrar
of deeds that holds the records to the title of your house. Indeed, ARIN
holds the paper records for legacys.  When a legacy transfers its space,
ARIN updates the records. ARIN does not own the legacy space. The Legacy
RSA is an agreement that transfers ownership of legacy space to ARIN.

The legacy dispute is almost entirely on the issue of intangible
property rights.  Some people assert (without proof) that ARIN can
capriciously withhold its government obligations of operating whois
service and IN-ADDR service to legacy's in order to coerce them into
transfering their property to ARIN. However, since ARIN has no right to
withhold these government services; the legal issue of the threat should
be investigated.


Attorney Richter is correct that ARIN has no authority over Legacy
space. Whether the space is hijacked or not is unproven. Guilmette's
article offers no proof of any allegation, but only innuendo. However,
the hijacking of legacy space is a legitmate legal issue; If Richter has
actually made false statements about the purchase of SF Packet Radio, he
could be (and I think should be) disbarred. There are so far no evidence
that the statements by Attorney Richter are false.  One must consider
the source of these claims of hijacking.

Guilmette was previously the operator of the monkeys.org blacklist,
which you may remember suddenly shutdown without announcement and
blacklisted the entire internet, seriously disrupting the email of his
customers who placed their trust in his good judgement and honesty.

Also, you may find this demand letter from Verio interesting
(http://www.monkeys.com/anti-spam/filtering/verio-demand.ps , and
related to the veracity of these claims. In the letter, Verio demands
that Guilmette remove an IP Address that Guilmette previously
blacklisted. The demand arose after Guilmette apparently continued to
refuse to remove the block well after Verio reported that the
formmail.pl problem was fixed. A copy of the letter may be found at
http://www.av8.net/verio-demand.ps, and a pdf conversion is at
http://www.av8.net/verio-demand.pdf

Guilmette associates with Alan Brown, Mathew Sullivan, and John Levine
through the spam-l list. Brown is formerly the operator of ORBS.ORG,
shut for defamation after making false claims about open relays to
profit Brown's ISP, which was also lost in payment of damages). Matthew
Sullivan is the ostensible operator SORBS.ORG with Paul Vixie and Dave
Rand. SORBS.ORG was hosted by unelected ARIN Board Member Paul Vixie.  
Vixie denied hosting SORBS and transferred the service to his MAPS.ORG
co-founder Dave Rand, but forgot to remove the in-addr.arpa entries.  
While denying involvement with SORBS, Vixie has curiously been willing
to discuss the SORBS business model on ARIN-DISCUSS.  ARIN-DISCUSS is
the mailing list restricted to ARIN members for ARIN business, and it
seems to be at least a conflict of interest for Board Members to promote
their own business using ARIN resources.  Levine is a business partner 
of Paul Vixie in a commercial bulk email operation called Whitehat.

Full disclosure: SORBS.ORG also falsely and malicously claims that
198.3.136/21 and 130.105/16 are hijacked.  Dean Anderson is the proper
contact for both blocks, and has been for many years. These blocks are
not hijacked and there is no reason to think they are or ever have been.

I might also add that my participation in PPML and membership in ARIN
was unlawfully interrupted in Feburary on the basis of false and
fictional claims of per se defamation. ARIN staff or board members
altered my statements to change their meaning, then falsely attributed
the altered statement to me, and then falsely and fraudulently accused
me of per se defamation, with the goal of having people rely on their
false statements.  One might assume that the CEO of ARIN (Ray Plzak) is
either directly or ultimately responsible for the misconduct.

		--Dean


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