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

[Tom Vest]

On May 20, 2011, at 1:24 PM, Chris Engel wrote:

> Tom,
> 
> Excising a particular section of this thread for the sake of brevity...
> 
>> Fair enough, you prefer to argue logic rather than facts:
>> 
>> Please provide a negative proof that "logic" could never lead any future
>> address user, potential address buyer, and/or potential address seller to
>> conclude that registration would not advance their own private interests.
>> 
>> Please provide a negative proof that "logic" could never lead any future
>> address user, potential address buyer, and/or potential address seller to
>> embrace "sales-friendly registration" but simultaneously reject
>> "operationally relevant registration" (i.e., the kind that makes whois an
>> appropriate subject of interest for community deliberation).
>> 
>> Please provide a negative proof that "logic" will BOTH always lead all future
>> address users, address buyers, and address sellers to self-maintain
>> "operationally relevant registration" for themselves in perpetuity, AND that
>> the attainment of that outcome by means of needs-free transfers could
>> never have any unintended consequences that might be as serious or more
>> serious than some marginal degradation of whois accuracy.
>> 
> 
> I don't think the above is a fair tactic for debate. You are asking Mike to prove a logical fallacy. Furthermore, when you start using words like "never" and "always" when discussing human behavior as benchmarks for judging the legitimacy of a system...your standards themselves appear absurd. If we applied the same standards for judging the appropriateness of a "needs" based policy, it would assuredly fail as well. Systems designed to regulate human behavior cannot achieve a uniformity of results approaching mathematical perfection, nor need they do so to be effective (IMO).
> 
> If you want to argue that it's likely a substantial number of individuals would have logical reasons for not wanting to maintain accurate registration under the policy Mike proposes...that's (IMO) a reasonable standard to base an argument on. Not sure whether I would agree with that proposition or not...but the standard is reasonable. Asking Mike to provide a standard of proof that couldn't allow for even a single exception isn't (IMO).
> 
> 
> Christopher Engel
> (Representing only my own views)

Hi Chris, 

Thanks for the reactions. Of course you are right on this count. My apologies to Mike for demanding what is, technically, logically impossible to deliver.

My intent was not to be merely hyperbolic, but rather to *strongly* suggest that we all engage our imaginations fully when considering the range of strategic responses that might seem to be "rational" from the perspective of any clever entrepreneur who may or may not have any long-term interest in what happens to the Internet or to others who count the Internet for their livelihood or anything else, once s/he is done. Granted, this year we're all operating in an environment that has been significantly shaped by the unintended consequences of last year's strategic adjustments to the previous year's entrepreneurial cleverness, and so on... I mean, who could have anticipated that DWDM might trigger changes in SFP policies that helped to ignite our first crash, or that widespread diffusion of P2P might prompt another shift in commercial strategy that could in turn precipitate a run on the ASN16 reserves? 

Suffice it to say that there are always plenty of smart people out there working out every conceivable new angle that might be exposed by the next change in policy and/or technology and/or market structure -- and in general, at most times, we all benefit tremendously from that fact. But that only remains true as long we do not, through omission or commission, open up any loopholes that are big enough to allow to whole industry to fall through, into who-knows-what. These days it's not really possible to doubt that such things can and in fact do happen from time to time.

I submit that the removal of "capability" testing would not only represent an irreversible change, but also has the potential to create a number of potentially fatal loopholes. And so in this particular case, I recommend that we proceed only if/after we can first achieve a very high level of confidence that no serious risks or threats are immediately created thereby.

TV