[arin-ppml] Fwd: [arin-announce] LRSA Requirement Modified for 8.3 Transfers

[David Conrad]

Chris,

On Apr 21, 2011, at 4:54 AM, Chris Grundemann wrote:
> As others have stated there are two considerations here:
> 
> 1) Does this belong in policy?

A reasonable question.  To me, what matters is that the definition be clearly defined, well understood by all parties, and subject to minimum (mis/re)interpretation.  I believe having the definition of 'legitimate address holder' be specified in a consensus policy is more likely to meet those requirements than one that is created in an ad hoc manner.  My concern is that without a consensus-driven definition, the actual definition in use will be required to be subject to interpretation by staff, which puts staff in an unenviable position (read: lawsuit bait).

> 2) What is the community consensus view of a legitimate address holder?
> I would strongly suggest that any new attempt at defining this in
> policy start with a poll of the community at large (as opposed to
> starting with a preconceived definition).

The fact that you feel this question needs to be polled would suggest to me that there may not be consensus in the community as to what a 'legitimate address holder' is and would reinforce my belief that a policy is necessary.

> IMHO, the best approach
> would be to find/build consensus around the definition of 'legitimate
> address holder' and only once that is done (rough consensus counts),
> write a policy proposal to codify it. A good place to start is
> probably with current ARIN staff practice, since that has served us
> very well thus far (I can't name an incident caused by it, perhaps
> others know of problems I am unaware of).

The issue I'm concerned with arises from the (very high likelihood IMHO) chaos that will erupt once legacy address holders being to recognize the value of the resources they hold.  In the past, since address space had relatively low value, I suspect folks simply went out and got more address space instead of hunting down address space they might already have had.  As a result, those addresses would lay fallow and be subject to hijacking.  However, after a dozen years, in which the initially hijacked address space has changed hands through M&A, bankruptcies, etc., who would have the right to put the address space on the STLS?  The folks who received the initial block (and who still have the letter from Postel) or the folks who bought the company that acquired the company that bought the assets of the company that obtained the block from a now defunct hijacker over a decade ago?

Perhaps questions like these have already been answered (I have been out of this particular world for some time).  If not, I suspect the clock in which to make these decisions is ticking.

Regards,
-drc