[arin-ppml] Audits

[Matthew Petach]

On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 1:20 PM, William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 4:02 PM, Matthew Petach <mpetach at netflight.com> wrote:
>> I'm feeling kinda dumb right now, so I apologize to the rest of the list
>> for having to ask simple questions, but isn't recovering unused space
>> a trivial matter of looking to see who hasn't paid their annual fees?
>
> Hi Matthew,
>
> Only for space allocated by ARIN since its inception in 1997.
>
> Space allocated prior to ARIN's existence, so-called "legacy space,"
> was assigned under a sometimes informal and sometimes semi-formal
> regime in which any contracts, if they existed at all, were implied.
> Questions about rights, responsibilities and durations were simply not
> addressed.
>
> Legacy space falls into a status quo of sorts where ARIN keeps the
> registrations as they were and doesn't touch them to the maximum
> extent practical except in very limited ways at the original
> registrants' request.
>
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin

Ah.  So this is *only* about fraud/abuse in non-RSA/non-LRSA
legacy-holder space, which ARIN has no real rights over anyhow.

Gotcha.

Thanks for the clarification.  This is really a disguised "eminent domain"
issue, then, where the community votes to have ARIN act as the
"government" to seize back assets from private use that it deems
are necessary to be used in a different manner for the public good.

Perhaps, like with more traditional cases of eminent domain, the
transfer should be accompanied by monetary compensation to
the entity whose resources are being taken?  (but who would do
the paying?  ARIN, as the 'government' entity in the relationship?)

Or is the pressure here to follow a model more akin to the
contraband forfeiture procedures that states follow when seizing
illegally obtained merchandise?  (but in that case, who is to say
what constitutes a 'legal' use of address resources?)

I'm not happy with either model; forcing ARIN to play the part of the
government in eminent domain situations, to lay claim to resources
that could potentially be used by legacy holders, would need to
include compensation for resources being claimed, which, like taxes,
would raise everyone's burden.

Similarly, forcing ARIN to play 'cop' to determine when resources
were obtained illegally, or used for illegal purposes, requires us to
codify what is 'legal' and what is 'illegal' as far as use of number
resources go; and I think that's hard to do without hampering
innovation, and creating a huge overlap between ARIN and real
governments.  :(

Is there a third scenario or model for what's being proposed that
I'm missing?

Thanks!

Matt