[arin-ppml] ARIN-PPML Digest, Vol 45, Issue 36

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

I had considered this as well and there's a catch
that will prevent this.

  I mentioned ARIN makes a report - but the policy proposal
actually states that it ONLY makes a report on ABANDONDED blocks.

  I am presuming that ARIN staff will setup some kind of internal
procedure where they take abandonded blocks and dump them back
into the free pool, then reassign them, since that is their charter.
Thus, the "list" of published abandonded blocks is no different than
the current list of "virgin" unassigned IPv4 (and IPv6)

  The blocks that ARIN believes but can't yet prove are abandonded
are only shown to the public via the WHOIS e-mail mark.  In other
words, ARIN need not provide a list of these.  They only just make a mod in
WHOIS to the e-mail address of suspect blocks then give us a summary
count of "in-process potentially abandonded" blocks.

  Thus, would-be hijackers would still have to iterate through
the -entire- IP range, and for each block they think is possibly
abandonded (ie: not currently being advertised, but still with a POC)
they would still have to query WHOIS.  And I think that WHOIS is already
setup to disallow high volume iterative queries to make it more difficult
for hijackers.

  Thus it's not really any additional help than what a hijacker
already has access to.

  As for the goal of disputable value, no offense but the real
problem isn't people like you who believe that the amount of available
IPv4 will only offer small relief.  The problem is the people out
there unconvinceable by IP mathematics - who simply won't believe
a logical proof that IPv4 reclamation is pointless because there's
not enough spare IPv4 out there.  They will only be convinced by
an actual census.

Just take a look for a moment at the controversy surrounding the
US Government's plans on using statistical estimation for certain
areas in the upcoming 2010 census.  You can argue until your blue
in the face that the census figures will vary by an insignificant
amount whether statistical estimation is used or not, with all
the mathmatical proofs available - but that isn't stopping the
Republicans from insisting on an actual person going and tapping
heads for the count.

   Unless a census/grooming/verification is done, we will have
this IPv4 reclamation pink elephant constantly dragging energy away
from us in every discussion of TCP/IP policy going forward.  Just
look at all the energy expended on IPv4 "transfer" and so on schemes.
Most focus on this list and on policy has been on IPv4, NOT on IPv6,
and we are heading to IPv6 lickety-split.  Let's get WHOIS cleaned up,
then we won't have this monkey sitting there on our back anymore.

Ted


> -----Original Message-----
> From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net 
> [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of Brent Sweeny
> Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 9:48 AM
> To: arin-ppml at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] ARIN-PPML Digest, Vol 45, Issue 36
> 
> it occurred to me, on reading Ted's note excerpted below, 
> that so identifying
> IPv4 blocks that ARIN believes but can't yet prove are 
> abandoned is a wonderful invitation to hijackers--increasing 
> the likelihood of one thing you're trying to prevent, while 
> working on another goal of disputable value which is 
> coattailed to a goal of undisputed value.  I believe it's 
> fine to clean up WHOIS data, and even trying to scrape up 
> every last dreg of available v4 space is useful, but it's not 
> going to stem the tide of runout, nor will the small relief 
> it offers arrive in time.
>   Brent Sweeny, Indiana University
> 
> Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at ipinc.net> wrote on 25 Mar 2009 17:51:11
> | SO what we will end up with this policy is the following:
> |
> | a report from ARIN that lists the reclaimed prefixes, and 
> the ones "in 
> | dispute" ie: the ones where verification is pending.  Those will be 
> | visible in WHOIS by the existence of a "bogus e-mail" mark on the 
> | e-mail data in the POC.  We will know that a certain 
> percentage of the 
> | "verification pending" ones will turn out to be reclaimed, and so 
> | based on that we will be able to make a pretty accurate estimate of 
> | how much stale IPv4 is tied up in WHOIS.
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