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

[Tom Vest]

On May 19, 2011, at 5:35 PM, Mike Burns wrote:

> 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.

If you are uncomfortable with the second half of of the question, then a simple accounting of all of the old address holders who have not responded yet will suffice.

To quote what you deleted, for the sake of clarity:

"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."

Without some means of (at minimum) benchmarking the relative size of (or anything else about) that "slight uptick," your interpretation of its causes and relevance are completely subjective.

>> 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.

Why are you attempting to change the subject to disaggregation? I thought your proposal was based on claims about the best way to maintain whois accuracy?

> Unless you are implying that his preference for market-based solutions has somehow overridden his BGP expertise, my point stands.

I decline to speculate about Geoff's innermost thoughts on this matter. Geoff has a vast reserve of hard experience dealing with market mechanisms in the BGP world, but even he hasn't advocated pure free-market routing at all places and times. But then my experience discussing matters like these with people all over the world for the last decade or so has left the impression that world-class expertise in BGP is perfectly compatible with radically opposing, mutually incompatible views -- not only concerning the best way to maintain a protocol number resource registry, but even about the proper way to manage global interdomain routing. Opinions on the two subjects seem to be quite independent and unrelated, at least in most people. 

Of course there is undeniably a subset of people (in fact, one that's is quite well represented in this industry) who believe that unrestricted market mechanisms represent the ideal solution for every problem at all times and places. I find it a lot easier to assume that you fall within that group -- esp. since you have more-or-less self-identified yourself as a member. 

>> 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*.

Okay, I concede your point.

And based on the same logic, I suggest that this proposal should be abandoned on the grounds that no one can claim to have any relevant "apples-to-apples" experience, or to have have any defensible "apples-to-apples" basis for assuming that this proposal has any chance of making it easier to maintain whois accuracy going forward.

TV

>> 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
> 
>