[arin-ppml] 2008-6: Emergency Transfer Policy for IPv4 Addresses

[Owen DeLong]

On Sep 30, 2008, at 2:29 AM, <michael.dillon at bt.com> wrote:

>> It is really quite simple.
>>
>> What is granted in a block assignment from a RIR  (or the
>> original DARPA
>> address-coordinatior) is not 'ownership' of the addresses,
>> but just a "right to use" license for those integers in a
>> particular context.
>
> Precisely!
> The context is what is all-important. Read your RSA and the
> ARIN policies to see what the context is and you will discover
> that you do not, in fact, have a licence which you can buy
> and sell. You must have technical justification for having those
> IP addresses.
>
That simply isn't completely accurate.  There is no right to use
conveyed. ARIN specifically decries any guarantee of routability
of addresses, and, for any other purpose, ARIN does not have the
ability to give you any more right than anyone else.

All that IP assignments/allocations from ARIN grant is:

	1.	Neither ARIN nor any other cooperating RIR nor IANA
		will register the same set of integers to another party
		so long as your registration with ARIN remains valid.

	2.	ARIN will, in the in-addr.arpa nameservers place a
		delegation for the corresponding in-addr.arpa zone(s)
		which have NS records pointed at your chosen DNS servers.

	3.	ARIN will, in the whois database, display the registered
		contact information.

That's it. That's what you get.  No right to use. No property rights.
Nothing other than a registration.

It turns out that cooperating entities known as ISPs tend to use the
RIR databases as an authoritative source for who they wish to route
addresses for (this is not 100% true, however).  This can create
the illusion of a unique right to use, but, no such hard fact exists.

> This whole issue is about how to deal with IPv4 addresses when
> the demand for them is higher than the supply. The people in favor
> of markets and eBay sales are essentially saying that we should
> FAVOR the wealthiest ISPs. This is an auction model of allocation
> in which the resources go to the highest bidder.
>
> Complicating the whole situation is the fact that nobody really
> needs IPv4 addresses any more. But since so few of the technical
> people responsible for IP networks have experience with IPv6, they
> fear it, and this fear drives people to delay the inevitable and
> to sweep problems under the carpet. How many of you know that there
> are issues with IPv6 and load balancers? How many of you have taken
> that issue to load balancer suppliers versus doing nothing?
>
Michael, until all of the sites people care about reaching are also
reachable by dual-stack, users will perceive a need for IPv4
addresses. Sure, in many cases, there are hacks and workarounds
that could provide for some form of NATPT or other partial
solution, but, none is 100% effective.

Additionally, until all of the eye-ball users have the ability to  
directly
reach sites via IPv6, site-owners will perceive a need for IPv4
in order to serve those customers.  Ih this context, no amount of
NATPT under the control of the site owner will replace the need
for IPv4 since the NATPT box would require IPv4 addresses
in order to do the translation.

>> The *license* is, itself, "property", and  can bought and sold.
>
> If that were true then ARIN policy would be irrelevant.
>
The *license* isn't a even a license let alone property.
It's a registration.

>> It is, arguably a 'derivative object', because it's existance
>> is derived from another thing.
>>
>> It is not a "derivative instrument", because those things are
>> a 'contract to enter into a contract'.
>
> Not according to Forbes Investopedia which has this to say:
>
> In finance, a security whose price is dependent upon or derived from  
> one
> or more underlying assets. The derivative itself is merely a contract
> between two or more parties. Its value is determined by fluctuations  
> in
> the underlying asset.
>
That would make all stock shares derivatives, so, I think Forbe's
definition is lacking.  Generally, derivatives are things like
options and futures where the value is determined by speculation
about the fluctuations in the value of the underlying contracts.

Owen

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