[arin-ppml] Hijackings

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <Pine.LNX.4.61.1104260938410.5148 at soloth.lewis.org>, 
Jon Lewis <jlewis at lewis.org> wrote:

>So, though most probably don't, I do have personal experience with ARIN 
>acting as routing police.

I personally would very much like to see _somebody_ take up the mantle
of "routing police".  Although ultra-democratic egalitarian chaos may
work just fine for PTA meetings and small-scale Libyan uprisings, I for
one have never been persuaded that it is a viable model for the management
of a planetary-scale network of networks that is responsible for handling
multiple trillions of dollars of commerce every year.

But reality is what it is, and the reality is that 99.9% of the modern
Internet is owned and operated by corporations, and corporations are
always loath to allow anybody else to tell them what to do.

So I am distinctly _not_ proposing the creation of "router police".  I
know that any such proposal would have less than a snowball's chance in
hell of accruing any significant political support at the present time.

It usually takes a war before centripetal forces exceed centrifugal forces.
Humans, by nature, cling to the philosophy of "every man for himself" until
there arrives a credible threat from outside.

Someday, when the Chinese reach the conclusion that announcing whatever
routes they feel like announcing is in their own best interests, _then_
there may be some serious talk of "router police", but not before.

In the meantime however, it seems like it might at least be a good idea
for the community to have _some_ defined mechanism of clearly expressing
its profound disapproval of the actions of those few participants that
deliberately and repeatedly flout even the scant and minimalist rules of
order which so far have managed to keep this unruly chaos afloat, even if
only barely.


Regards,
rfg