[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-133: No Volunteer Services on Behalf of Unaffiliated Address Blocks

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

On 2/16/2011 11:32 AM, John Santos wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Feb 2011, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>
> ... one of the most illogical posts I have ever read on a technical
> mailing list.
>
>
>> On 2/15/2011 11:32 PM, George Bonser wrote:
>>>>
>>>> The Internet will be Dead ->   Kill the Internet ?
>>>>
>>>
>>> I don't think the internet is going to die because of whois entries.  At
>>> best it is just a distraction.  At worst, it is a sort of retroactive
>>> changing of the rules that have been in place for a very long time.  If
>>> it hasn't already destroyed the Internet over the past 20 years of the
>>> general public being on it, it isn't going to break anything over the
>>> next few years.  This almost seems to be like several ways of somehow
>>> getting hold of legacy address space or making it easier to hijack it.
>>> Forget it.  Those addresses were issued in a different time under
>>> different rules and you can't just go changing the rules now just
>>> because we have run out of them.
>>
>> Yes you can.  There is plenty of legal precedent for doing just that
>> in every legal system in the world.
>
> Ever hear of ex post facto?  It's unconstutional in the US.
>

If the ARIN community says tomorrow that all legacy holdings must be 
returned that is not violating ex post facto.  If they started saying 
that the use of those assignments for the last 15 years was illegal 15 
years ago then yes, that WOULD be ex post facto.

>>
>> And in fact, we HAVE done this.  We have done it by setting up a
>> system to make legacy IPv4 obsolete.
>>
>
> We don't go around seizing buggy whips.  Making it obsolete does
> not deprive holders of the right to use it as they see fit.
>

This greatly stretches the definition of "use" IMHO.

If the rest of the world is no longer using IPv4 then any IPv4 holdings 
that you have become impossible to use, unless your goal is to run an 
antique computer museum or something like that which is not connected to 
the rest of the world.

>> What I find quite interesting is this concept that legacy holders have
>> special IP addressing "rights"
>
> Straw man.
>
> There's no special right, just the right to use the addresses as
> they always have, not subject to capricious revokation or random
> reallocation or reassignment of their addresses by an organization
> with whom they have no contract or business relationship.
>

But they can't use the addresses "as they always have" because IPv6
will eventually displace the legacy addresses.

>>
>> If this is really true, then why aren't the legacy holders arguing that
>> their "rights" are for IP ADDRESSING, not "IPv4 addressing"
>
> Because we were assigned IPv4 addresses by the legitimate orginization
> at the time, not IPv6 addresses or DECnet addresses, IPv4 addresses.
>
>>
>> IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are....drumroll.... "IP addresses"
>
> False equivalence.
>
> No legacy holders were assigned IPv6 addresses.
>
>>
>> If the legacy holders really and truly have special "ip addressing"
>> rights then by NOT giving them FREE IPv6 assignments we are VIOLATING
>> those rights - and they have a legal claim to go challenge ARIN's
>> decision to NOT extend FREE IPv6 registrations to them.
>
> Straw man.  It is your false equivalence of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
> which leads to this claim.  No legacy holders are making it.  Second
> straw man in the same paragraph.  No legacy holders are claiming any
> right to additional addresses beyond what they already hold.
>
>>
>> If you peruse the handwritten spiral notebook that the "original" IPv4
>> addresses were assigned off of, you don't find mention of "IPv4".  You
>> just find "IP addresses"
>
> If you scan the sales logs of any home electronics store in 1955,
> you won't find any mention of "black and white television set", just
> "television set".  But all the IP addresses were 4 octets and unique
> within that 32-bit address space and were assigned in conformance with
> the relevant IPv4 RFCs.
>
>>
>> If you look into the "deal" that was made when ARIN was created you
>> find this as well.
>>
>> The concept that "Legacy IP Addresses" were specifically IPv4 and not
>> IPv6 is something that has been invented.  It has no basis on the
>> original assignment documents that the Legacy holders are pretending
>> their supposed "rights" derive from.
>>
>
> Yet another total straw man.  No legacy holder is claiming the equivalancy
> of IPv4 and IPv6.
>
>> And, the Legacy holders know it.  They know perfectly well that there
>> isn't any such thing as special rights for them just because they got
>> addresses under different rules.  That is why they aren't suing ARIN for
>> free IPv6 assignments.
>
> No, it's because they received the holdings under one set of rules,
> and won't accept rule changes without carefully vetting them first,
> which requires time and money.  You are worse then my 6-year-old
> niece who constantly changed the rules of "Trouble" based on her
> dice rolls.  Grow up!
>

The set of rules that existed when they got their addresses were a
product of the environment of the time, just as the lack of speed limits 
on roads 100 years ago were a product of their time.

But the rules were changed and the speed limits came.  They were applied 
despite the vehicle owners objections.  And the shift to IPv6 was made 
despite the legacy holders assignments, that is also a rule change.

If the original IP assignment scheme did not have the limiting problem 
that it does, and didn't force a shift to IPv6, then the legacy holders
would probably have had the IPv4 rules changed out from under themselves 
for the simple fact that eventually the community would have
lost tolerance for the freeloading, if no other reason.

How long does patent law allow an inventor in the US to continue to 
profit from his invention?  How long would it be reasonable to allow the 
legacy IP holders to profit from being first in the boat?  Do you 
seriously think that legacy addresses would be allowed to be handed down 
from father to son forever?  When your dead of old age then would the 
argument that your son "spent a lot of money helping with the formation 
of the Internet and in exchange for doing that he gets a free IP 
assignment" have any moral validity?  Because, that is the primary moral 
validation for allowing legacy holders to not help underwrite the costs 
of address assignment maintaining.


Ted


>
>>
>> The problem is that too many other people like you have swallowed this
>> "legacy holder rights' baloney and actually believe the lie.
>>
>
> What lie?
>
>
>
>> Ted
>>
>>     We have known this time was going to
>>> come for a very long time.  Here we are. It is what it is.
>>>
>>>
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>>
>