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

[Mike Burns]

Hi Owen, replies in bold.

    I'm top-posting because it's too hard to keep this readable with the black vertical lines on the left side.

    I guess we can let Geoff Huston speak for himself:
    http://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2008-11/transfers.html

  Look at the ARIN policy proposals listed in that document and you will see that it was
  written WAY before anything was actually enacted. It does not even reference the policy
  that ARIN adopted (2009-1) though 2008-6 was admittedly somewhat close to 2009-1.

  Yeah, it's old, but it's almost completely germane to the discussions we've been having here.




    As to Microsoft planning leading them to purchasing the same exact need as ARIN's particular application of its policies at the time of the transaction?
    Please.
    Remember that Microsoft was an arms-length negotiator who was solicited by the address broker in the deal along with 80 other companies.


  So what? I have no reason to believe that Micr0$0ft would have agreed to purchase addresses that they did not need.

  But don't you think it unlikely that Microsoft actually went shopping for a particular number of addresses in a market which didn't exist prior to their purchase, found the first such seller in history, bid on the full lot of addresses the seller was offering,  won the bidding, negotiated a contract, and only then ARIN came in and found that the number of addresses in the pool was the exact amount Microsoft would have qualified for, in a single aggregate?  If you think that is unlikely, then the odds of a similar deal being transacted wherein that exact match did not occur have to be recognized as non-zero, and the potential for the transaction to take place without notifying ARIN is non-zero. There are not a whole lot of deals in the public domain that we can point to, but we can infer from the fact that old mergers and acquisitions are being processed now under 8.2 that in fact, the whois data for those netblocks has been incorrect up to now. So we have some evidence that whois is inaccurate and that presumably did not affect the routability of those addresses. I have argued that the uptick in 8.2 transfer requests is in response to natural market forces at work. Prices go up and owners of address block control take steps to ensure accurate registration. Other natural forces will work to move addresses from underutilization to efficient use, and the needs requirement is not necessary to drive that, any more than it is needed to drive registration.




    So Microsoft's planning was so excellent that they could find the exact amount of addresses they needed in the form of the very first public sale of legacy addresses ever recorded?
    That's believable!
    And their excellent planning staff, whose decision so exactly matched ARIN's ex-post-facto analysis, failed to inform management that they could save $7.5 million by getting them directly from ARIN?


  I suspect that Micr0$0ft saw some expected benefit from being able to keep the exact numbers somewhat secret and
  having an LRSA instead of an RSA. Apparently they were willing to pay $7.5 million for it. Of course, another possibility
  is that they didn't actually pay $7.5M, but, rather forgave $7.5M in debt owed by Nortel as part of the bankruptcy.

  Microsoft could have kept the numbers secret by going straight to ARIN under NDA to get an allocation, like anybody else. And Microsoft negotiated the deal without an RSA of any kind. It was only after ARIN became notified of the deal that the negotiation between ARIN and  Microsoft began,  and besides, by doing the deal with a bankruptcy court, Microsoft would have known that the deal would be made public, making it *less* private than going right to ARIN.





     "I suppose since I favor a faster migration to IPv6, I should probably support the greater disruption to IPv4 brought about by your policy, but, in the interests of the community, I just can't bring myself to do so."

    lol. Sounds like you're shirking your longterm stewardship duties there.


  No, I believe that my stewardship duties are to work to manage the address space in the least disruptive manner
  most beneficial to the community at large. My personal opinion in favor of faster IPv6 migration is not particularly
  relevant to my stewardship duties. As such, I just can't bring myself to shirk my stewardship duties as you request.


  Owen

  Regards,

  Mike


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