[arin-ppml] ARIN-2012-3: ASN Transfers - Last Call

[Tom Vest]

On May 3, 2012, at 4:08 PM, Jeffrey Lyon wrote:

> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 3:45 PM, Blecker, Christoph
> <christoph.blecker at ubc.ca> wrote:
>> Simple version: I do not support this policy as written.
>> 
>> Longer version:
>> I have yet to see or fully understand a situation where a specified ASN transfer is either technically required or even preferable, outside of a network engineer just wanting a particular number. The way I currently understand it, the "vanity licence plate" metaphor that some have been using seems pretty accurate. This opens the door for assigning artificial value to a number that not many people outside network engineers know or should know about. I would support this change if there was a reasonable technical need behind it (and perhaps somebody can enlighten me).
>> 
>> At ARIN XXIX, there was also been some talk around bankruptcy courts and not having a transfer policy around ASNs for that. Perhaps a more elegant solution would be to create a new 8.x policy to specifically address transferring resources from entities in bankruptcy, similar to the way 8.2 addresses M&As. That way, ARIN has more guidance to what the community thinks, and judges involved have specific recommendations from us in how the community views these resources.
>> 
>> Overall, I think more discussion is needed.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Christoph
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of ARIN
>> Sent: April-30-12 10:19 AM
>> To: arin-ppml at arin.net
>> Subject: [arin-ppml] ARIN-2012-3: ASN Transfers - Last Call
>> 
>> The ARIN Advisory Council (AC) met on 25 April 2012 and decided to
>> send the following draft policy to last call:
>> 
>>   ARIN-2012-3: ASN Transfers
>> 
>> Feedback is encouraged during the last call period. All comments should
>> be provided to the Public Policy Mailing List. Last call for 2012-3 will
>> expire on 14 May 2012. After last call the AC will conduct their last
>> call review.
>> 
>> The draft policy text is below and available at:
>> https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/
>> 
>> The ARIN Policy Development Process is available at:
>> https://www.arin.net/policy/pdp.html
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Communications and Member Services
>> American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)
>> 
>> 
>> ## * ##
>> 
>> 
>> Draft Policy ARIN-2012-3
>> ASN Transfers
>> 
>> Date: 14 March 2012
>> 
>> Policy statement:
>> 
>> In NRPM 8.3, replace "IPv4 number resources" with "IPv4 number resources
>> and ASNs".
>> 
>> Rationale:
>> 
>> There are legitimate use cases for transferring ASNs, and no significant
>> downsides (identified to date) of allowing it.
>> 
>> Timetable for implementation: Immediate
>> _______________________________________________
>> PPML
>> You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to
>> the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List (ARIN-PPML at arin.net).
>> Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at:
>> http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml
>> Please contact info at arin.net if you experience any issues.
>> _______________________________________________
>> PPML
>> You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to
>> the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List (ARIN-PPML at arin.net).
>> Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at:
>> http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml
>> Please contact info at arin.net if you experience any issues.
> 
> The problem with many proposals, this one especially, is that every
> situation is always looked at from the perspective of "is this
> technically required." I would argue that many look at every situation
> from the perspective of "would I benefit from this?" To be fair, most
> here do align "I benefit" with stewardship, but herein lies the
> problem.
> 
> PPML, policy meetings, etc. are highly dominated by "old school"
> engineers. I vote at ARIN elections, and consistently see speeches
> that detail how long each candidate has been supporting stewardship,
> how they helped pioneer the internet, and so forth. That's great, we
> love you for it and you command much respect from your peers. The
> problem that we now face in 2012 is that the community is
> substantially larger and more diverse than the representation within
> the ARIN policy community. Some quick observations:
> 
> - PPML is predominately engineers, most of whom are not involved in
> financial decision making for their organizations (or are from
> non-profits)
> - Attendees at ARIN meetings are predominately the same folks.
> - Given these observations, i'm willing to assume that those who
> actually vote at ARIN elections are mostly the same crew of old school
> policy makers.
> 
> What i'm attempting to argue is that this does not have to be a zero
> sum game. Just because this policy could benefit the management, bean
> counters, and marketing gurus of any given commercial enterprise does
> not mean that stewardship has been abandoned, that ARIN is becoming
> commercialized, or that we're somehow setting a bad precedent. 

In theory, stewardship interests and "bean counting" interests might indeed be the same; in practice, they rarely are. 
While I don't place much stock in the distinctions that you make here, they do help to illuminate the hole in this argument. 
Stewardship requires a balancing of interests not only along the continuum of old-school engineers, new-age bean counters, and other diverse (but seemingly silent/invisible) stakeholder groups in the present-day ARIN policy community. It also entails balancing interests along a complete different dimension -- i.e., the one that separates *current* stewardship policy stakeholders (a.k.a. "incumbents") and *future* community members (a.k.a. prospective "new entrants"). On a good day it's just possible, with significant time and attention, to come up with stewardship policy solutions that satisfy that balancing requirement in both dimensions... or at least it is when the stakeholder community(s) are defined in explicitly technical terms. Throw "bean counter" interests into that mix, however, and that balancing exercise becomes impossible.

If you have any doubts about this, I suggest that you try to imagine how you might feel if ASN privatization had taken place back in 1993-1994, before your network existed (or transitioned to BGP4/IDR). Now imagine that your best option for obtaining an ASN was your least favorite upstream provider. For extra points, you could also try imagining that you live somewhere where the total number of reachable upstream providers is between 0-2. 

If you can imagine yourself and/or your own "bean counters" being indifferent between that scenario -- or any other other that you can come up with -- and the current scenario in which you are able to obtain an ASN on neutral, technically defined, non-adversarial terms, then I encourage you to share it with the list; I will maintain an open mind. 

Thanks, 

TV

P.S. IMO, that overlooked, forward-looking aspect of the stakeholder mandate is also one of the most important distinguishing features that separates what routing and addressing industry members do in this domain, individually and collectively, from the sort of activities that tend to attract very unfriendly (read: "unprofitable") attention from DOJ and other competition authorities. It's also the one thing that distinguishes what policy community members have chosen to do with respect to the disposition of IPv4 from what former Soviet politburo members chose to do with respect to the disposition of Russia's "public" assets back in 1991-1992. Please think *very* carefully abandoning that part of our mandate.