[arin-ppml] IPv4 Transfer Policy Change to Keep Whois Accurate

[Mike Burns]

Hi Tom and welcome to this particular discussion,

The current legal realities I referenced are the implications of the public 
information associated with the MS/Nortel deal.

In this forum I have argued that the public bankruptcy documents reveal that 
the addresses transferred from Nortel to MS were not originally allocated to 
Nortel, but represented some accumulation of addresses allocated to Nortel's 
"predecessors in interest" who were Nortel acquisitions from the 1990s.

I argued that MS and Nortel negotiated  a deal to sell all the addresses in 
that accretion, although the public documents reveal that Microsoft was able 
to bid on an amount smaller than the entire lot.

After the original asset sale agreement between MS and Nortel was 
negotiated, ARIN became aware of the transaction, and after some 
negotiations with the parties at interest, and some changes to the MS/Nortel 
asset agreement, made a press release claiming that the transfer could 
proceed under existing ARIN policy.

ARIN later revealed the policy utilized to be NRPM 8.3, which requires four 
things which may or may not have actually happened:

1. Addresses are supposed to be issued back to ARIN and then reissued to the 
recipient, Microsoft, and the bankruptcy docs did not reveal this happened 
in any way.
2. Address are supposed to be transferred as a single aggregate, but if the 
addresses were an assortment of netblocks from prior Nortel acquisitions, 
this could not have happened.
3. Recipients were required to sign an RSA, MS signed a modified LRSA.
4. Finally, the requirement at issue here, a needs analysis had to be 
completed by ARIN, which magically showed that MS qualified for exactly the 
amount already bid for and negotiated the sale of.

If they had needed fewer addresses, they could have bid for less than the 
full pool.
If they needed more addresses, they should have received an additional ARIN 
allocation.
Paraphrasing Goldilocks, the random allocation of addresses to long-ago 
Nortel acquisitions was "just right."

My reading of the bankruptcy documents leads me to the conclusion that the 
bankruptcy judge found that Nortel had the exclusive right to transfer the 
addresses, even though the judge had not been informed of any ex-post-facto 
NRPM 8.2 transfer from the original registrants to Nortel. To me, this means 
he was convinced that ARIN had no rights over transferring the addresses, 
although ARIN has rights over reflecting that transfer in Whois.  This is 
consistent with a declaration by the head of ARIN at the time in the Kremen 
case where he stated that ARIN has no authority over legacy addresses.

My argument is that the apparent success of RIR stewardship (although I 
claim many of the allocated and unrouted addresses represent failures here) 
over the last two decades is laudable and represents an obvious requirement 
in the stewardship of free pool resources, but is unnecessary in a 
post-exhaust age where the price of addresses will ensure efficient use.

I also argue that in the post-exhaust age, conflicts over claims to address 
rights will likely increase, putting more pressure on Whois to accurately 
represent reality.

Regards,
Mike Burns






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Vest" <tvest at eyeconomics.com>
To: "Mike Burns" <mike at nationwideinc.com>
Cc: "McTim" <dogwallah at gmail.com>; "Owen DeLong" <owen at delong.com>; 
<arin-ppml at arin.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2011 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] IPv4 Transfer Policy Change to Keep Whois Accurate


Hi Mike,

While it may or may not be true that your perspective on this question is 
consonant with that of "the APNIC community," elements within said community 
have been championing the same broad policy changes that you're advocating 
here now since the early 1990s. Thus it would seem that the views that you 
associate yourself with here couldn't possible have anything to do with 
"current legal realities" -- unless perhaps by "current" you mean something 
like "twentieth century."

Given that historical fact -- and the apparent success of the RIR 
stewardship mission over the intervening two decades of possible 
nonconformity with legal reality  -- on what basis could you legitimately 
claim that abandoning time-tested registry practices that have been integral 
to maintaining whois accuracy to date represents the best, or perhaps the 
only way to maintain whois accuracy in the future?

Alternately, if you actually had in mind some other, more recent legal 
developments -- which by definition could not have any causal relation to 
policy arguments that predated them by 10-15 years -- a clarification of 
exactly what those changes in legal reality are would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

TV


On May 11, 2011, at 3:13 PM, Mike Burns wrote:

> Hi Owen and McTim,
>
> I, along with the APNIC community, could make the claim that you are 
> abandoning the stewardship role in maintaining Whois accuracy, and 
> sacrificing that stewardship role on the altar of an ARIN needs policy 
> developed for the purposes of  free pool allocations that does not comply 
> with current legal realities.
>
> But charges of abandoning stewardship are inflammatory, and I hope we can 
> keep to actual discussions of the implications of my proposal without 
> casting aspersions.
>
> Let's agree that we all seek the highest standards of stewardship, but 
> disagree on how those standards should be applied.
>
> I think I could characterize your opposition better by saying that you 
> believe the danger of hoarding and speculation outweigh the risk to whois 
> accuracy.
> Would that be an accurate statement, if not your exclusive objection to 
> the proposal?
>
> Regards,
> Mike
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "McTim" <dogwallah at gmail.com>
> To: "Owen DeLong" <owen at delong.com>
> Cc: "Mike Burns" <mike at nationwideinc.com>; <arin-ppml at arin.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2011 2:53 PM
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] IPv4 Transfer Policy Change to Keep Whois 
> Accurate
>
>
> On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 9:09 PM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
>> I oppose the policy as written.
>
> +1
>
>
>> Abandoning our stewardship role for the sake of making it more likely
>> people will register their misappropriation of community resources is
>> like legalizing bank robbery in the hopes that the thieves will pay
>> income tax on their ill gotten gains.
>
> ;-)
>
> -- 
> Cheers,
>
> McTim
> "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
> route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel
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