[arin-ppml] On whether morality can be the lone argument against a transfer market (was Re: 2008-6: Emergency Transfer Policy for IPv4 Addresses)

[Owen DeLong]

On Sep 30, 2008, at 1:39 AM, Eliot Lear wrote:

> Kevin,
>
> You argued in essence that just because something is happening it  
> should not be condoned.  That is a very fair argument.  However, it  
> has to be balanced with ARIN's other priorities.  In this case, as  
> has been repeatedly stated, if the regulatory authority and  
> capability of ARIN is such that the transfers cannot be stopped,  
> then the result will be that they will occur anyway, and that such  
> transfers have a deleterious impact elsewhere.  Robert Bonomi's  
> comments should not understated as a necessary function of ARIN when  
> he wrote the following:
>> The _only_ "unresolved" question today, is whether or not the RIRs  
>> are going
>> to be 'in the loop' for those transactions, *when* they occur.
>>
> Here are three cases where accuracy matters:
> Various law enforcement agencies and other parties seeking to either  
> protect the public or to protect private rights need to be able to  
> determine who is the responsible party for a given address, when it  
> can be shown that it was involved in either a criminal or tortuous  
> act.  The whois database plays a key role in providing those people  
> information.  It is by no means perfect, and it is not the only  
> means to provide the information, but it is never-the-less useful.   
> By encouraging people NOT to update the records through a black  
> market, the database accuracy can and will degrade over time.
> The ability to resolve legitimate disputes over address space is  
> degraded when it can be shown that ARIN's records do not reflect  
> reality.  If two customers attempt to use the same address space,  
> service providers may or may not turn to ARIN to understand who owns  
> the block.  And if they do, customers may be able to challenge ARIN  
> to say that their record keeping is inaccurate.
> Over the longer term, it should be possible to more tightly bind the  
> routing system to the records found in the ARIN database.  This is,  
> perhaps, what John Schnizlein referred to as “cryptographic saran- 
> wrap”, but could eliminate a form of attack that currently can be  
> found on the Internet - the hijacking of prefixes for nefarious  
> purposes.  Once again, in order for ARIN to perform this function,  
> its database must be sufficiently accurate that the service  
> providers believe they can trust the system.  Absent that trust it  
> will be very difficult to secure the routing system as it is  
> currently instantiated.
1.	Prefix hijacking occurs today.
2.	Unauthorized transfers are, essentially a pathological case of  
prefix hijacking.
3.	If you can explain how the above three points are addressed for a  
hijacked prefix
	which was hijacked from a defunct resource holder, then, you have the  
exact
	answer needed for dealing with a black market.

Owen

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