[arin-ppml] Borders sells their /16 block

Eric Brunner-Williams ebw at abenaki.wabanaki.net
Wed Dec 7 11:51:47 EST 2011


[Responding to an error of Mike Burns, 3rd para, below.]

> After all, the numbers were presumed to be unique when they were doled out prior to the ARIN registry's existence.

Well, if the additional assumption is made that one or more routes to
two or more of the numbered resources exists, which became a
reasonable assumption after address assignment began, but was optional
ab initio, and remains so (see rfc1918 and other addressing schemes).

> Phone numbers are also integers, yet they are bought and sold. 

There exist more than one numbering plan for circuit networks. Policy
present in one does not guarantee policy present in any other.
Allocation policy is not technology, so it is mechanism independent,
and therefore non-universal where the mechanism is present.

> Domains are just letters and numbers, yet they are bought and sold.

Not correct in one or more namespaces, e.g., one or more namespaces
managed through the "IANA Function" and associated contracts.

That end-users "buy" and "sell" what they think is a property interest
in strings for which a globally unique resolution (see routing, above)
to some resource(s) via a look-up protocol is a given. Some people
think "the web" is "the net". Language has contexts, and use of a term
in one context does not invalidate different uses of the term in
another context.

Eric



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