[arin-ppml] IPv4 SWIP requirements (?)

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <1194b151-cb40-2455-1963-58101dbd4c6c at linuxmagic.com>, 
Michael Peddemors <michael at linuxmagic.com> wrote:

>...
>There is a solution to that, SWIP to the ISP 'rwhois' server(s) which 
>have the ability to provide 'rwhois' date down to the /32.
>...
>While the rules make it clear, that of course this isn't for every CPE 
>device, having the owner listed, and of course that wouldn't probably 
>fly with most european privacy laws...

Just FYI -- That's rubbish.  When it comes down to brass tacks and
real-world pragmatics, the europeans, despite all of their bluster
and bravado about "personal privacy", are very nearly as pragmatic
as we are.  For example, it is trivially easy, in most cases to
get meaningful and useful WHOIS data for .EU and .DE domain names,
even when those are allegedly registered to "natural persons".  The
europeans manage to mentally square this with their much ballyhooed
emphasis on personal privacy via the fig leaf of hiding the data
behind a captcha in each case.  (I know, because not that long ago
I was easily able to obtain the alleged name of an alleged German
citizen who had allegedly registered a particular .DE domain name
that was being used to distribute jihadi videos.)

The same pragmatic considerations have also, thankfully, taken precedence
within the context of the whole "EU-US Privacy Shield" bruhaha:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-216_en.htm

You can be sure that any time you see the terms "ombudsperson" and/or
"robust enforcement" within any governmentally-issued statement, such
as the one just above, that it is all a PR smokescreen being used to
delude the public at large into beliveing anything other than the
truth, which is that the status quo is being preserved.  And indeed
as the New York Times reported:

   https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/03/technology/us-europe-safe-harbor-data-deal.html

    "European officials on Tuesday agreed to a deal with the United States
    that would let Google, Amazon and thousands of other businesses continue
    moving people's digital data, including social media posts and financial
    information, back and forth across the Atlantic..."

My only point is that if push ever came to shove, and if ARIN ever made
a rule stating that (for all ARIN IP space) rwhois records for IPv4 space,
down to the /32, would henceforth be required, even if they explicitly named
"natural persons", then the europeans would grumble and pound their fists on
the table, but at the end of the day they would fall into line and permit
it, all while noting their strenuous objections, for the record, of course.

But of course, this is all irrelevant, since ARIN shall certainly never
make any such rule, helpful though such a thing might be, e.g. to law
enforcement, to spammer hunters, and even to those ordinary consumers
who are daily defrauded out of their hard-earned cash by this month's
crop of fast-talking hucksters with slick web sites.

>If a person wants to 'speak' for his use of an IP resource, he/they 
>should expect that in order to find out if he/they can speak to that 
>usage, they should be listed in the public record as the operator of 
>that space.

Yes.  The analogy I already put forward is the vehicle license plate.
If you're going to drive around on streets that -the public- paid for,
then you gotta have one, and your petty and personal gripes about your
"loss of privacy" be damned.

But this is the point in the conversation where some provider(s) always
pipes up and says "Yeabut -we- fully paid for -our- infrastructure, so
it isn't a ``public'' resource that's being used, and thus, nobody has
a right to tell us what to do, na na na na na!"

Even leaving aside the fact that, as a matter of historical record, all
these same folks have effectively built their businesses and perofitability
on the backs of the original *government funded* Arpanet research, it
should not and cannot escape anyone's notice or attention that the Internet
doesn't exactly qualify as a ``niche'' industry that only affects a small
segment of society anymore.  Thus, at some point there may come a day when
many such parochial and private interests may no longer be sustainable, e.g.
in the face of the ongoing, growing, and daily festival of hacking, cracking,
and fraud that has become the modern Internet.


Regards,
rfg