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

[Mike Burns]

Hi Tom,

>Can you provide us with a comparable measure of the number of old address 
>holders who have not responded to opportunity afforded by the 8.2 change?

No.

>If possible, please break down the number into two groups -- those who are 
>on the fence and holding out fin hopes of additional blandishments and 
>concessions, and those whose philosophical or >commercial priorities 
>preclude registration regardless of the side payments.

I have never met anybody whose philosophical or commercial priorites 
preclude registration. I imagine that many of those who have not done the 
8.2 transfer have failed to see any utility in doing so.
Besides, the ARIN language never required it, it only says "ARIN will 
consider requests for transfers."  And since the addresses continued to be 
routed without notifying ARIN of the mergers and acquisitions, many failed 
to apply. Also, for legacy holders, an 8.2 transfer meant having to sign an 
RSA, I think, which was a disincentive.

>Having enjoyed the extremely lopsided privilege of discussing broadly 
>related matters with Geoff semi-regularly between the years 2000~2009, I 
>wholeheartedly agree that he is one of the world's >foremost experts on 
>BGP. However, with all due respect to the man, Geoff's views about the 
>relative merits of market-based vs. RIR-style need/capability-based number 
>resource allocation were formed >*before* BGP was widely deployed [1]. To 
>my knowledge, the first concrete expression of those views took place in 
>mid-1994, as documented for example in the recently published 20-year 
> >retrospective on AARNET and the early days of the Internet in Australia 
>[2]. The second concrete expression of those views AFAIK is RFC 1744 
>(December 1994), which I (completely subjectively) >interpret as a somewhat 
>bitter personal reflection on the results of the first experience [3].

>Regardless of whether or not that interpretation is valid, contemporaneous 
>Australian press accounts indicate that AARNet's acquisition by Telstra was 
>announced on January 7 1997 and implemented on >July 1, and that Geoff had 
>assumed the title of Telstra Internet's Technical Manager on or around the 
>same time. After that he continued to advocate the same position, e.g., in 
>the context of the IETF >"Pricing for Internet Addresses and Routing 
>Advertisements" (piara) BoF.

>So while Geoff's world-class expertise in BGP is unquestionable, his 
>seemingly consistent preference for market-based vs. need/capability-based 
>resource management must be based on something else.

I never claimed that Geoff Huston, whom I  have never met, did not have a 
preference for market-based solutions, only that he did not view the danger 
of disaggregation as a reason to have needs requirements for transfers. 
Unless you are implying that his preference for market-based solutions has 
somehow overridden his BGP expertise, my point stands.

>Besides, wasn't it you who just recently rejected (my) suggestion that 
>observations based on the historical experience(s) of other registries 
>could provide insight on the merits of your proposal?

You suggested that the historical experience of the DNS registry was 
applicable, but I still have not seen an apples-to-apples comparison worthy 
of providing insights. For the DNS registry to inform us, we would have to 
compare an experience of  for-pay DNS registries *with a needs test* to 
for-pay DNS registries *without a needs test*.

>Or did you really mean that historical observations that seem to flatter 
>your argument are relevant, but observations that raise doubts are not?

No.

Regards,
Mike





TV

[1] The gradual diffusion of BGP during this period is recorded in some 
detail in the IETF's old "Internet Monthly Report" series (1991-1998): 
ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/museum/imr/.
Additional good sources on both the state of EGP/BGP(x) deployment and 
concurrent thoughts about addressing management include the IETF meeting 
minutes for the area.operations, area.routing, bgpdepl, tacit, ale, cidrd, 
idr, and piara BoFs/working groups.

[2] Described here: 
http://www.aarnet.edu.au/News/2009/11/26/AARNet-salutes-20th-anniversary-of-the-Internet-in-Australia.aspx
The episode in question is detailed in Chapter 4, p. 48 -- which is 
available online at
http://www.aarnet.edu.au/library/AARNet_20YearBook_Chapter4

[3] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1744