[arin-ppml] ARIN-2011-2 (Was: Forcing POCs and other contacts to act through a "blacklist")

[Scott Leibrand]

On Apr 29, 2011, at 8:44 PM, Leo Bicknell <bicknell at ufp.org> wrote:

> In a message written on Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 08:15:48PM -0700, Scott Leibrand wrote:
>> As announced on April 18th, the AC voted to abandon draft policy
>> ARIN-2011-2 at our April meeting in San Juan.
>
> That is unfortunate.
>
> I went and found the transcript,
>
> I can't say how disappointed I am to see a statement like this from John
> Curran:
>
>  "Legacy resources that have been abandoned because a company, for
>   example, has dissolved don't really pose a problem."
>
> Having personally tracked spam and botnets back to such blocks in
> the past I know first hand John is incorrect in this statement.  As
> these lists show, there are folks hijacking them and using them to
> do bad things on the Internet.  The fact that the company has dissolved
> makes it much easier for this to happen, since there is no one to
> complain.
>
> I also have trouble squaring statements like:
>
>  "We currently do pursue misuse of resources for reclamation. But a
>   directive from the community saying expend a significant focused effort
>   in this area probably would have financial implications, and we need a
>   guide as to how large people would like those financial implications to
>   be."
>
> ..and..
>
>  "Resource impact:  Moderate. Significant staff training, additional
>   staff, software tools, all could be required."
>
> The first is a question, we need to know how many resources to put into
> this, but the second suggests there is a known level of impact, and it's
> Moderate.  It could in fact be low, if that's what the community wants,
> but it appears the level under consideration was decided before the
> community discussed the proposal.
>
>> I, for one, felt that the community generally was not in support of
>> policy requiring ARIN to take specific action on this, particularly in
>> light of the fact that ARIN indicated in San Juan that they were
>> indeed taking such action even in the absence of policy dictating it.
>
> Staff is already moving on this you say?  Well, the resource
> evaluation said it required "Significant staff training, additional
> staff, software tools," so I am now confused.  If they are already
> doing it, why would adopting the proposal require more training?  If
> they are already doing it, why do they need new software.
>
> I'm sorry, but I don't believe your assertion.  If they are already
> doing it, the resource impact should have been "none" or "low".  But if
> the resource impact is moderate and they need all these things to
> implement 2011-2 then they are not in fact, already doing it.

I'm not sure how to resolve that apparent difference between what we
heard in the staff assessment and what we heard at the member's
meeting.  Perhaps someone from staff can comment.

>> If you (or any member of the community) feel that this is
>> insufficient, you are welcome to initiate a Last Call Petition any
>> time up until five business days after the AC's draft meeting minutes
>> from the April meeting are published (which should occur some time on
>> or after May 2nd).
>
> I'll note in the written comments, 5 speak positively, 3 negatively.
> All of the positive ones make some comments that they have issues
> with the language that may prevent them from voting for this specific
> proposal, but they like the idea.
>
> [For the record, the show of hands was 7 in favor, 45 against.]

I didn't get the impression that very many of those opposed to the
specific proposal supported the idea in principle.  There seemed to be
a handful of folks strongly in favor, but a larger number
uncomfortable with the idea of requiring ARIN to be proactive.  They
didn't speak out strongly against it, but expressed doubts and voted
against the draft policy in the show of hands.

> I would have hoped with folks speaking in support but with language
> changes that the AC might have tried to adjust the language and run
> it through another meeting.
>
> I also remember a day when the AC shepherds would have gotten back
> to the original proposal author with what had happened shortly after
> the meeting.  No one let me know what had become of this until you
> posted on PPML.

My apologies.  Yes, I should've done that.  I'll skip the
reasons/excuses, and make sure I (and we) make that a priority next
time.

> No, I won't petition.  The ARIN I found so vibrant and seemed so
> community oriented in 2002 has degenerated into some sort of weird
> caricature I don't even understand anymore.  The various PDP changes
> seem to have slowly morphed to kill policy as quickly as possible,
> rather than try and find the good parts and foster them.

I get the impression that the main change in the PDP over time is away
from being driven by individual authors (even the word has changed, to
originators) and toward a more generalized process driven by the AC
with input from the entire community.  What maybe we haven't paid as
much attention to is how much harder we've made it for active
community members to have a strong impact on a particular policy
they're interested in.  I think that has resulted in policies getting
brought toward a consensus position faster (which is overall a good
thing IMO), but if the compromise text doesn't get support at the next
public policy meeting, that also means that it's easier to abandon the
proposal after a single cycle...

> The leadership is so worried about ARIN's image due to the IPv6 transition
> and transfer market that even the midlest of criticism merits a 21
> gun defense salvo to deny any issue and quiet the accuser as quickly
> as possible.

I'm not sure that extensively discussing an issue on PPML does much to
quiet a critic.  :-)  It does make for a lot of messages to read,
though.

> I've thought about leaving PPML several times since I left the AC,
> and I think this is the final straw.  There's no reason for me to
> expend my time and effort in this forum any longer, I'm not getting
> anything out of it except dismay and frustration.

:-(

> So long, and thanks for all the fish!

If you do decide to leave PPML, I hope you'll stay subscribed to
arin-announce, and still participate (remotely or in person) at public
policy meetings.

-Scott