[arin-ppml] 2600::/12 LOA

[John Curran]

On Mar 29, 2014, at 8:23 PM, Matthew Kaufman <matthew at matthew.at> wrote:

> Here's what surprises me: that it is ARIN's business at all to provide an LOA allowing someone to announce a BGP route. I could have sworn that I have read hundreds of times that ARIN is *only* in the business of running a database in which they maintain unique registrations, and that routing policy is of no concern to ARIN.
> 
> Either ARIN added a database entry assigning 2600::/12 to Merit, in which case I am confused for several reasons, starting with it not being a unique assignment...
> 
> Or ARIN didn't add a database entry assigning 2600::/12 to Merit, in which case what could the letter possibly have said?

Matthew - 
 
   This is not an "ARIN" process per se, it's more of a practice of 
   that some ISPs require; if you come to them seeking them to route 
   a block not assigned to you, they'll have you get a letter of 
   authorization from the party listed on the block.  For example, 
   this was provided to Merit for new /8's that we received from 
   IANA, so that they could do darknet testing on them before we 
   began issuing space out of them.

> I would hope that in the absence of both community-developed policy *and* a change in ARIN's chartered mission, ARIN would not issue routing authorization that covers any address space, with the possible exception of the addresses assigned to ARIN itself for its own servers.

   Would you also include doing testing on address space in the free
   pool before its issued to anyone, so that we can detect potential
   impairment of the space? 

Thanks,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN