[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal 95: Customer Confidentiality

[Milton L Mueller]

> -----Original Message-----
> [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of William Herrin
> Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 11:36 AM
> 
> It's a fact that transparency requires reporting sufficient for
> members of the general public to audit process should they desire to
> do so.

This is not a fact but a very complex (possibly justified) intepretation, the validity of which rests almost entirely on how you define "reporting," and "sufficient." 

> It's a fact that ISP address allocations are strictly dependent on
> downstream assignments.
> 
> It's a fact that an audit can't positively confirm the accuracy of an
> end-user assignment without checking with the end-user.

But this fact does not necessarily imply a generalized capability of any member of the public to check with the end user. There are other mechanisms of doing audits. 

> It's thus a conclusion resting solely on fact that transparency in the
> allocation process requires members of the general public to be able
> to contact the end-users to whom portions of the finite resource are
> assigned.

Here you've equated the ability to "audit process" with the ability of any member of the general public, for any reason, at any time, to directly contact an end user. Not a logically valid equation, as far as I can tell. 

By the way, the finitness of the resource is completely irrelevant to this discussion. Printer ink is scarce, too, but that doesn't give you the right to demand that OfficeMax give you the information needed to ring me up whenever I replace the cartridge on my HP 1012.

> The only way you get rid of this, as a matter of fact, is by unifying
> the allocation and assignment policies and moving to an assignment
> criteria that's not based on downstream assignment count for
> justification.

That's an interesting thought. Please keep moving in that direction. 

Milton Mueller
Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
XS4All Professor, Delft University of Technology
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