[arin-ppml] ARIN IPs and Spammers? => Need for Governance

[John Von Stein]

This does not need to be “eye for an eye” enforcement.

Just like a speeding, beyond the safety issues involved the deterrent against doing it partially the cost of the fine and the increased insurance premium but mostly is the fear of losing the privilege, not the right, to drive.  Repeated or an egregious offense will lead to someone’s driver’s license being revoked.

If we define the use of IP addresses as a privilege, not a right, granted by ARIN then it is possible to build Acceptable Use rules on that founding principle.   These Acceptable Use rules become the foundation for enforcement.  We will then need a judicial system (IP Court) of sort so the rules can be enforced fairly and equitably across the user population.  The judges can be elected by the ARIN membership with term limits to ensure that equity and fairness are maintained over time.

Much of the policing “Neighborhood Crime Watch” is already in place with many opportunities for an innocent to report spam or other abuses.  The problem is that not much can be done once that abuse is reported other than for the ISP to block that IP address.

I am suggesting that we need to take the next step in the maturity progression of IP Address administration by defining the use of IP addresses as a privilege, defining Acceptable Use rules and creating an applicable enforcement / judicial system.   Right now WWW stands for Wild, Wild West where it’s every man for himself with a judge named Colt with six 45-caliber jurors.  As an individual and/or ISP I can block an IP address (lock my door), report the abuser to various black lists (picture in the Post Office), etc but only if there was a crime committed in the real world (fraud, theft, child pornography, copyright infringement, etc) can the weight of a judicial system come to bear.    We need a parallel system within the IP Address world.

There will be a lot of gray area and fuzzy lines even with Acceptable Use rules in place (Advertising vs. Spam, login attempt vs. DDOS, etc).  Many of the cases will have to rely on the fairness and equity of the knowledgeable judges/arbitrators involved who will have to administer their duties to the best of his/her ability and we, as ARIN members, will need to back these decisions up by supporting and abiding by those decisions.

The Supreme Court admitted that it is difficult to define obscenity yet it was very clear on its authority to make case by case decisions on what is obscene or not (“I know it when I see it”).   IP Address abuse is going to be very difficult to draw a crisp, bright line around.  We all acknowledge that IP abuse is happening but we currently have no way to officially judge and/or correct the situation even when we see it.

For the record, I am not an attorney nor desire to be a judge, juror or in any way be involved with enforcement or to make money or gain favor or influence of any type from this endeavor.  As an active industry participant I have a vested interest in and feel a responsibility to help mature and evolve IP Address administration as the mission critical fundamental building block that it is for all IP based technology development to come.   Abuse tends to get worse until some governing force takes control of the situation.   We either do this for ourselves, such as a Commodity exchange/clearinghouse SRO (Self-Regulatory Organization) or it will be put in place on us such as the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) which governs stock exchanges.   I have worked in both environments and, believe me, if we need to be regulated then SRO is a much better place to be over time.

Thank you,
John W. Von Stein
CEO

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From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of William Herrin
Sent: Saturday, November 8, 2014 12:49 AM
To: Matthew Kaufman
Cc: arin-ppml at arin.net
Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] ARIN IPs and Spammers?

On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 10:44 PM, Matthew Kaufman <matthew at matthew.at<mailto:matthew at matthew.at>> wrote:
> If I send a bunch of junk mail from my house, or play music really
> loud late at night, does the city come and take my street address away?
The city arrives in the form of police who politely ask if you'd like to spend the night at a different address with a somewhat more restricted egress.

-Bill

--
William Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com<mailto:herrin at dirtside.com>  bill at herrin.us<mailto:bill at herrin.us>
Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>
May I solve your unusual networking challenges?
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