[arin-ppml] Future pressures on the ARIN policy process (Was: Use of "reserved" address space)

[James Hess]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 5:04 PM, William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:

Adoption 2010-2 may help this.  But the burden of renumbering is high.
I don't think end users should have to renumber their /24 to a direct
/24 under 2010-2,
just to become general ARIN members.
It will also be impossible after IPv4 exhaustion,  unless they will
adopt IPv6 and qualify
for direct assigned IPv6 resources under a similar policy.


> I didn't characterize the balance of people on PPML or at the meetings
> at all. I spoke only to the balance of folks voting in the elections
> for AC and the board.

In regards to this notion that  non-voting orgs can participate in the
policy development process. It's true that they can participate in the
discussion.   However, the AC  oversee this process.    Any
organization that cannot participate in the elections is not really
_fully_ able to participate.

In theory, in the worst case, the AC or the Board could just ignore or
interpret the results of the discussion however best suited the people
who elected them.   The  resource holders with no vote have no way of
eventually making sure their interests are represented fairly in AC's
or board's discussions.  I would say they are disenfranchised from
open participation in the PDP process, despite their ability to
"discuss".

Surely  less-destructive  anti-takeover measures could be conceived...

ARIN could let resource holders who have been SWIP'ed  resources participate,
or allow them to have voting rights after being a member of  ARIN for  X years,
holding delegated resources for Y years,   or attending Z number of
past ARIN meetings,  providing they can show proof of their
eligibility.

That is based on the assumption that any attempt to  "takeover ARIN"
after IPv4  exhaustion
would not likely to be attempted if it would take years to do so.

I am not so sure a takeover scheme is even impossible with the current
limitations.
If the financial incentive is sufficient,  bad players  could  be
setting up shell organizations,  and apply for the least-expensive
resource possible  (AS numbers).

If there were more  _legitimate_  members,   that would be harder if
not impossible.
What could be the cost to create a few thousand organizations,   if an
org stands to improve profitability by tens of millions  by
influencing the outcome of  ARIN  board elections?


> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
--
-M