[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-178 Regional Use of Resources

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 14, 2012, at 1:03 PM, Steven Ryerse wrote:

> Owen, you know more about these processes than I probably ever will - as is obvious from your various post to this community.  
> 

Meh...

> However, what's really gonna happen in real life is this kind of a scenario:
> 
> Someone like China Telecom (don't remember their real name) who is controlled by the Chinese Government - is going to decide they want a lot more IPv4 addresses.  In fact they want their own /8.  Since there aren’t any unassigned /8's for them to get from APNIC (and IANA doesn't have any more to give) they start looking at who is assigned the /8's worldwide.  They scan the list of /8 assignee's and come across a curious one that is assigned to Amateur Radio Digital Communications which is the 44.0.0.0 Class A block.  If my memory serves me right they are associated with the University of San Diego.  I picked this block at random because my Grandfather was an early adopter Ham Radio operator (Hams) in the 1930's.  Unfortunately he is a Silent Key now, but I digress.

KB6MER here... I'm well and truly familiar with the situation with 44.0.0.0/8.

> Since China Telecom is controlled by the Chinese government and essentially has very very deep pockets they make a huge offer to the Hams to buy their whole /8 block.  They haggle a bit and China Telecom agrees to pay an unbelievable amount of money to the Hams for the whole /8.  They sign an agreement with a confidentiality clause in it, and the funds are wired into their bank account immediately, all without ARINs knowledge.  While the Hams are sleeping that night dreaming about all of the state of the art radio equipment they are gonna buy with the exorbitant amount of money they just received in their bank account,  China Telecom brass visits the CEO of APNIC.  They ask the CEO to agree to service their new 44.0.0.0 block and at first he refuses because ARIN has authority over that block and APNIC doesn't.  China Telecom then offers APNIC an exorbitant amount of money and of course APNIC agrees to it.  The next day this whole transaction is announced to the world and everyone is up in arms over it.  ARIN is mad - the other RIR's are mad (although maybe not as much) - IANA is mad - and there is this huge buzz in all the papers and on the Internet about it worldwide.  

That would be pretty difficult to do. There isn't actually anyone with the authority to sell it on behalf of the amateur radio community at large and Amateur radio is a very diverse community.

However, let's assume we're talking about a less problematic block such as one held by a corporation that is willing to sell it...

APNIC wouldn't agree to that regardless of the amount of money involved because they don't actually have the authority to do so and there is a lot more riding on it than just the money. It would essentially destroy the RIR system and probably land the responsible APNIC executives in jail. APNIC, like all RIRs is organized as a non-proffit for a reason.

However, the sale could be done by approaching ARIN and APNIC under current transfer policy and actually conducting the transfer legitimately, presuming that:
	1.	The holder of the resource can prove that they are the legitimate registrant and agree to the transfer.
	2.	The recipient meets APNIC criteria for receiving the block (justified need).
	3.	The RIRs both agree to the transfer (which they will do absent a policy-based reason not to).

That is existing policy, so again, I am not sure why you think there is a problem.

> Then while ARIN is publicly trying to refuse to let control of this block go to APNIC, the Chinese President calls up the American President and tells him that China Telecom really needs this /8 block.  Further he tells the American President that if he doesn't back his request to move control of the /8 to APNIC  - then China will no longer buy America's debt.  By the end of the phone call the American President agrees to allow the /8 block to be moved to APNIC, and then his staff calls the powers that be to make this happen - and by nightfall the deal is done.  Voila, in a matter of hours ARIN has lost control of a whole /8 and the world's biggest sale of an IPv4 block all happened without any of ARIN's involvement or even their knowledge.  China Telecom didn't have to prove to ARIN they needed the block and none of ARIN's policies were followed.  ARIN just has to accept it.  ARIN didn't even get an administrative fee for this move.

This presumes so many facts not in evidence and is such wild and improbable speculation built on top of semi-plausible speculation that I simply can't take it seriously. I'm sorry.

> This is the way things are done in the real world and in the real marketplace.  So Owen, you asked how my comment below applies.  This scenario that I have laid out is of course the Armageddon of possibilities, but things like this, and things on a smaller scale can and WILL happen in the future.  It is inevitable!  So again I say, ARIN can either try and block or stall IPv4 from being transferred between 3rd parties, or ARIN can have the vision and realize the inevitability of what the near future is going to be like - and prepare its policies to accommodate it - and cheerfully administrate it for a reasonable fee.  

Proposal 178 has _NOTHING_ whatsoever to do with transfers. It only governs receipt and use of space from the ARIN free pool by parties requesting it from ARIN directly and keeping it registered in the ARIN database.

Transfers are governed under section 8 which already allows the type of transfer you seem to be concerned about. Please re-read section 8 of the NRPM and then if you still think there is a problem, by all means, attempt to describe the problem such that it can be addressed. However, please make that part of a separate thread as it is utterly and completely unrelated to proposal 178.

> I'll leave it to you and other folks in the community and the folks at ARIN - who know much more about the actual processes than I do, to come up with real world policies to accommodate the inevitable transfer by 3rd parties of IPv4 blocks.  When that happens I will applaud those policies in this community.  I suspect a lot of other will as well.  :-)  

I think you're a little late. You could have started clapping almost a year ago when we first adopted an inter-RIR transfer policy. Heck, in some ways, you could have started clapping in 2009 when we first adopted a specified transfer policy.

Owen