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

[Jimmy Hess]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 4:13 PM, ARIN <info at arin.net> wrote:
>
I  oppose  PP133 as written.
Opposed on count 1: "Unaffiliated address blocks"
These address blocks are legacy blocks which are within ARIN's
responsibility for maintaining services
and setting number resource policy.

Unless ARIN chose to abdicate the responsibility, these blocks are not
"unaffiliated";
RSA or not, service contract or not.  WHOIS  "Placeholders"
indicating non-responsibility would be
technically inaccurate, because ARIN is the RIR whom responsibility
for the legacy allocations were conferred to.



Opposed on count 2:

It's not right for a number resources policy action to make ARIN
abandon providing
essential services to legacy holders that ARIN already took
responsibility for and has
a duty to provide,  in a manner that may threaten stability of legacy
resource holders' networks,
or ability for them to be contacted about abuse or technical matters using
information in WHOIS.

If ARIN wants to totally abandon the responsibility for legacy
allocations'  services,
then ARIN should find a suitable third party, such as another RIR,
capable,  willing,
and prepared for ARIN to properly hand off legacy address space
services and policy
responsibility to.

Absent that,
These services are valuable to the entire RIR community, not just the
resource holder. ARIN already
agreed to be responsible for WHOIS and rDNS for the legacy registrations.

I Might not be so opposed,  if legacy holders could in some way  pay
ARIN a reasonable
amount to support the maintenance of their rDNS service,  without
signing any RSA or contract,
as an alternative to signing an elaborate  LRSA agreement  /  joining ARIN.

If  ARIN is supposed to be maintaining the legacy allocations,  then
services should be offered
for those allocations   without ARIN  dissuading resource holders from
buying services by making them sign
RSAs  guaranteed to surrender any special rights they might think they have.


Opposed on count 3:
Removal of information from WHOIS.  ARIN already agreed to be
responsible for WHOIS for the
legacy allocations.   Stripping out information and just creating a
stub won't do.

ARIN needs to keep that information available in some form, even if it
is believed to no longer be accurate,
or is suspected to be updated;    even if they choose to make that
only available to members,
via login, or some other method --  WHOIS data should not be destroyed
for legacy resources
that do not complete some "RSA signing process".

There is a less harmful way of doing that....  insert a _banner_  in
the WHOIS record  to the effect
that the resource is not subject to a proper RSA / payment for service.

Or  let ARIN  itself run a separate WHOIS server for the  "archived"
legacy registrations,  referred by lookup
on the primary WHOIS server.
With appropriate huge banners indicating the allocation is historical
or not in good standing with the RIR.


Opposed on count 4:

All this proposal would really seem to accomplish would be to disrupt
legacy networks,
make some legacy resource holders angry,  renig  on  agreed upon
responsibilities,
and create confusion for users of WHOIS.

This is not the first step towards  getting  legacy  resource holders
to do what would be preferable (sign the RSA,
and fully subject their resources to ARIN policies);   it  might be a
step in the future..


But the PP could have at least had some teeth,  such as   revokation
and reassignment of legacy resources  after X  months of  remaining in
that status,   then there might be some meaningful amount of address
space to free up.


--
-JH