[arin-ppml] Policy Question(s)

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <0F29D1BA57992E4CAB5AD2C9AE7B42393777FCBE at EMV01-UKBR.domain1.systemh
ost.net>, michael.dillon at bt.com wrote:

>> So my question remains... 
>
>You ask too many questions. 

I want to learn what the policy is.  If you have a better way for me to
do that, please indicate that to me.

I have read the applicable documents available on the ARIN web site. They
are ambiguous at best.  They do not answer these questions.

>ARIN has a fraud reporting page at <https://www.arin.net/resources/fraud/>.

Who said anything about fraud??

Why would I use that ``fraud'' form when, as far as I can make out, nothing
in the least bit fradulent has occured, i.e. in the case I have described
here?

>Use it and stop asking so many silly repetitive questions.

I wasn't aware my questions were repetitive.

>Oh, by the way, this list is for discussing ARIN policy,

Sir, I have been looking all night at a rather lengthy discussion that
took place ON THIS LIST just two short years ago in which several
participants debated what the policies should be, specifically for
legacy blocks.  That debate was vigorous and, as I say, lengthy.
And from my reading of it, it is not at all clear that the policy was
at all well defined, either at the end of that discussion, or since.

Regardless, it does seem as though you are ORDERING me, unilaterally,
not to discuss something on this list that quite clearly was an appropriate
topic of discussion, right here, on this very list, just two short years
ago.

If you can enlighten me as to why you think I'm off-topic for this list,
I'm all ears.

But first allow me to poinyt out that the several gentlemen behind this
endeavor:

     http://www.depository.net/

would like, it seems, to foster a marketplace for IP addresses.  I would
like to do likewise, considering how easy it _appears_ to be to buy and
sell sizable IP address blocks at the current moment.  Here is another
entity that seems to already be peddling /24s openly, as we speak:

    http://www.jump.ro/ip.html

I have money to invest, and I am ready to proceed.  I would like to start
buying and selling IP addresses, in bulk.

Now, can you just tell me please:  Will I be thwarted in this business venture
by _secret_ unpublished rules regarding  inter-company IP address block
transfers... secret unwritten rules that appear, magically, out of thin air,
just _after_ I have invested my time, effort, and money in this venture?

Maybe you understand what I'm getting at, or maybe you don't, or maybe you
just don't care, because these are not ARIN-related policy questions that
happen to affect you or be of interest to you.  But maybe I'm actually not
the only person on this planet who might be curious, as I am, as to whether
or not a ``marketplace'' in IP address blocks _already_ does exist within
the ARIN region, as this example (and others) would tend to indicate:

   NET-216-59-128-0-1

and also, whether this current ``marketplace'' is something that ARIN is
merely tolerating for the moment, or whether this marketplace is in fact
now ready for people to make investments (e.g. in brokerage businesses)
without fear that ARIN is going to come in, in the ninth inning as it were,
and, like some modern day Elloit Ness, raid the game and take away all of
the chips...  unilaterally and suddenly.  (Obviously, if this is a real
possibility, then one would have to be a fool to invest in an IP brokerage
business at this time.)

Note:  The above indicated IP address block is quite certainly _not_ the
only example I have in hand where there was apparently a sale (or a
``gifting'') of a sizable IP block... apparently sanctioned in some way
by ARIN... although it is more than a little bit unclear exactly _how_
that might have occurred, under the existing policies.  (Do some entities
get special, preferential treatment?  Do you?  Will I?)

So, to quote Shakespere  ``Methinks the lady doth protest too much!''
Your extraordinary hostility towards even allowing a discussion of this
subject to take place, in this very appropriate venue, actually just
piques my interest even more!

Why is this policy question too ``touchy'' a subject... you know... the
question about the policy by which ARIN sanctions some IP block sales,
even while, apparently denying others...  why is that too touchy a POLICY
subject to be discussed on this list?

Despite your claims to the contrary, I _have_ been asking policy questions.
And I have been asking them here on this thing that's titled the ``public''
policy mailing list.  (Did I misread that ``public'' part?)  It's clear
that for some parties, these questions might be uncomfortable.  I understand
that.   And it's equally clear to me that those same interests can stiffle
and prevent these questions from even being asked, here or elsewhere.  But
let's not kid ourselves.  I have been asking serious on-topic policy questions.
I'm sure if you work at it, you'll be able to successfully gag the messsenger,
but if your only basis for gagging me is the clearly false claim that I've
been in the least bit off-topic... well then I hope this will be seen for
what it is, i.e. just gagging of somebdoy who asked questions that made
certain folks uncomfortable... NOT because I was at all off-topic.  (And
there are reams and reams of discussions in the archives of this list where
these same questions about buying and selling IPs, and the complex problems
of legacy block ownerhsip and transfers been discussed...  and not just a
little, a lot.)

>... not for haranging people...

I haven't been ``haranging'' anybody!  I clarified my question just a tiny bit,
just so that I could maybe have some hope of actually finding out what the
bloody rules are, that's all!  (And it's pretty clear that not all of them are
even written down.)

So why is your reaction so hot?

I am honestly perplexed.

>... about stuff that is unrelated to policy and is, in fact, already
>being handled by ARIN staff.

What is?  What exactly do you think is ``already being handled by ARIN staff'' ?

I have no idea what you are talking about.  Seriously.  Can you explain?
Are either you or ARIN so prescient that you knew about NET-216-59-128-0-1,
in particular, before I even mentioned it???

Hey!  That's a neat trick!

So I'm guessing then that you already know all about the other three blocks
I was going to mention (and I guess ARIN does too, even though I've never
once mentioned them before to anybody), and that's Good, because then you
can educate me as regards to how _those_ sales got formally blessed.


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  I _do_ understand that quite a lot of people... probably a majority
in fact, both here and elsewhere... actually loath and despise the whole
idea of IP address block ``brokerages''.  Acutally, despite what I said
above, I do too.  But you know, like it or not, the evidence is in, and it
seems to be going on already, right now, anyway.  And as the character
Yoasarian often said in Joseph Heller's `Catch-22' ``If everybody else
was doing it, then I'd be a damn fool to do any different.''  And at this
moment, it _does_ appear to me that everybody else is already doing it.

So if that's the case, then why should _I_ be the only one who _isn't_
climbing on board the gravy train?  I mean seriously, why?  Just because
I'm not an ``insider'' and an old established member of the club?