[arin-ppml] Curious about consensus

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 07:26:37PM -0400, Milton L Mueller wrote:
> > 2008-2 required a transferor to sign an RSA or LRSA _before_ they could
> > release the block to ARIN for transfer.  The presumption is that the
> > receiver wanted a legitimate, recognized by ARIN block and thus the
> > transferor had incentive to sign an RSA or LRSA first.
> 
> But this is precisely my point. Everything you say here and below
> seems to be founded on the assumption that a transferor requires
> ARIN's pre-approval. Nortel has just blown that assumption out of
> the water. The fact that it is under bankruptcy court may strengthen
> its resolve not to be bothered with a transfer agreement involving
> ARIN, but I see no reason why _any_ legacy holder couldn't do the
> same thing.

I think my point is that it is in the buyers hands, as I stated
before.  It is my _best guess_ that most buyers will want blocks
recognized by ARIN for a number of reasons, and thus will demand
transferors follow whatever process ARIN has set up.

It is because of this I am most curious about Microsoft's motives
in this case.  They appear to have paid a huge sum for something
they could have gotten much cheaper directly from ARIN, and done
it in a way that may not have gotten ARIN's recognition.  Of course
the bankruptcy court just wants cash, and doesn't care about any
of these things.

Bankrupticy courts have sold things that don't exist, just to get
cash for creditors.  Caveat Emptor, as they say.  Nothing on that
side disturbs me here, other than I hope we don't end up with a lot
of companies in bankruptcy!

ARIN has always been voluntary though.  See the thread about the
"routing police" for some parallels.  ARIN's "authority" rests with
the fact that most ISP's use the ARIN database to determine if they
should route blocks.  There's a rogue few who don't, but 98% is
"good enough" for a functional Internet.  Transfers are no different,
if buyers (in particular) demand the use of an ARIN process for
their own protect, the transfer process and whatever rules will be
followed.  If buyers don't demand it, or a significant number of
sellers don't participate it will be a failure.  ARIN can't litigate
10,000 different sales outside the process.

This is also one data point.  One does not make a trend in any
direction.  I don't view the Microsoft-Nortel deal as a omen, but 
rather as a first concrete transaction to look closely at and make sure
what the community wants to happen does happen.

For the record, I was against all paid transfers from day one.  In my
time on the AC an via all of the discussions my distaste for them has
mellowed a bit, but I am still opposed.  I don't think ARIN has gotten
the policy right in any of the drafts or policies, and the result will
be more chaos.  Further, I think IPv6 will be deployed quickly (faster
than most, it would appear from talking to my contemporaries), and thus
this is all a huge distraction.  Still, if we're going to do them we
need to use whatever community goodwill ARIN has as leverage towards an
ARIN process, and I don't think the current policy does that at all.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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