[arin-ppml] ULA-C and reverse DNS

[Owen DeLong]

On Mar 22, 2010, at 12:22 PM, <michael.dillon at bt.com> <michael.dillon at bt.com> wrote:

> 
> 
>> Permanent allocations are an absolutely horrible idea.  They 
>> create a monotonically decreasing resource which cannot be 
>> reclaimed when abandoned. Implementing such a thing reflects 
>> a failure to learn from our IPv4 experience.
> 
> You are just playing semantic games. The meaning of a "permanent
> allocation" will be defined by the global RIR policy. I fully
> expect that policy to have some form of renewal process, and failure
> to keep that up will cause the registrant to forfeit their block.
> There will be some form of waiting period, perhaps 5 or 10 years,
> after which the block is in play again, and might be snapped up
> by a new registrant. Part of M&A due diligence will be to check the
> status of any ULA-C blocks and if they are wholly unregistered 
> or forfeited, then you know that you are dealing with incompetent
> network administration. That kind of thing increases the risk of
> merging networks therefore depressing the value of the company.
> If forfeiture becomes at all common, then after a few instances
> in which companies failed to get themselves bought, or sold at
> bargain prices, with this as a factor, you'll start to see 
> annual reports touting the fact that their IP addresses are
> "in good standing" with the RIRs.
> 
No, I'm not playing semantic games.  Permanent Allocation has
been used as a term in at least one of the ULA-C proposals
which was specifically defined in said proposal as not
requiring any form of renewal.

> 
>> s/ULA/GUA-tainted/g
>> And you've got exactly the same scenario as ULA-C.
> 
> No. ULA-C addresses already exist and have been set aside
> by IANA. There is currently no RFC or RIR policy defining
> how they are used, so they are dormant. If you create
> documents which use tainted GUA space for the same kind of
> usage, then people will start to "pirate" the existing 
> ULA-C space. That is not the same scenario.
> 
While the block remains reserved by IANA, the RFC attempting
to implement it was deprecated or failed to achieve consensus
(I don't remember which). I have no problem with assigning the
ULA-C space to the RIRs to be administered as the pool of
tainted GUA, but, GUA and GUA-tainted must be administered
under identical qualification and cost structures or GUA-tainted
becomes a tool for abuse.

My point is that it is important to make sure there is no incentive
to use GUA-tainted other than the desire to have your addresses
tainted. I do not care which pool of numbers is set aside for
GUA-tainted. I'm perfectly fine with it being the ULA-C prefix
which is set aside for this purpose.

> ULA-C exists. Now we have to put some rules around it, and
> some management practices.
> 
All of the proposals for rules around ULA-C involve alternative
policies which create incentives to misuse ULA-C in such a
way that it will eventually become GUA. Setting up identical
policies which enable GUA and allow for those who want
tainted GUA to get it just as easily, but, do not provide additional
incentives for (mis)using tainted GUA will remove the incentive
for this form of (mis)use because networks that do not
specifically want their addresses tainted will receive
addresses which can later be routed if they choose.

>> A liberal GUA policy which:
>> 
>> 	1.	Does not assume prefixes will be routed
>> 	2.	Offers the user a choice of "tainted prefixes" 
>> if they choose
>> 	3.	Is coupled with a modest fee structure (much more modest
>> 		than the current fee structure, on the order of 
>> $300 initial
>> 		and $50 annual, for example)
>> 
>> Would offer pretty much all that is good about ULA-C without 
>> making it a tool for end-running addressing policy.
> 
> 
> No.
> 
> We have a small problem over here in the corner, dealing with
> something analogous to private network addresses in IPv4, and
> mainly concerning enterprise network architects. The solution
> to that is *NOT* to change the rules for everybody, but to tidy
> up the corner and make sure that it stays in the corner.
> 
We can agree to disagree about that. I do not think that tidying
up the corner by sweeping the dust into the global atmosphere
is a better solution. ULA-C on a separate policy framework
with a different fee structure will result in the eventual distortion
of ULA into GUA usage. There are other problems which also
call for more liberalized GUA policy. Solving multiple problems
at once is not a bad thing.


Owen