[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal 120: Protecting Number Resources

[William Herrin]

On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 2:13 PM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
> On Nov 9, 2010, at 7:57 AM, Eliot Lear wrote:
> Thank you for your explanation. It seems as though you would like to start with low hanging fruit where "abandoned" would mean:
>
> the address space is not routed; and
> one of the following circumstances applies:
>
> administrative (or technical?) contact disavows use of the space
> no contacts can be found either by email, by phone, or by post.
>
> 2(b) is problematic IMHO. Just because we can't locate the contacts does not mean that
> the organization is defunct or has stopped utilizing the resources.

There are probably some useful process formulas to be found in the
various state escheat laws. The typical process is different
everywhere you look but the commonalities appear to be about like
this: if a property goes unclaimed with no activity for a year, the
entity holding that property can seek to escheat. They make three
diligent attempts over 120 days to contact the owner. If no one
asserting ownership can be contacted, the property is turned over to
the state. The state sells, auctions or otherwise converts the
property to cash. It then holds the cash for five or ten years in
trust for the owner should he ever show up after which it goes in to
the state treasury.

None of this is directly applicable because "IP addresses aren't
property" (sic) and ARIN isn't a government agency.

Some key principles in the escheat process relevant to what we're
talking about are:

1. No activity for a year. So, no updates, no acknowledgements, no BGP
announcements that weren't confirmed to be fraud, etc. Maybe make this
a little longer since activity in the Internet sense tends to be
further apart than what happens offline.

2. Three diligent contact attempts over 120 days. Presumably also
means contacting the company in general if possible and trying to find
someone who knows something about the IP addresses.

3. Cash value. In this case, probably an offer to provide a comparable
number of first-available addresses under the same legacy terms if the
person shows up within five years.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


--
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004