[arin-ppml] [EXT] Re: Open Petition for ARIN-prop-266: BGP Hijacking is an ARIN Policy Violation

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <F04ED1585899D842B482E7ADCA581B8472A6D5DE at newserver.arneill-py.local>Michel Py <michel at arneill-py.sacramento.ca.us> wrote:

>If we want an Internet cop, the last place I would put it is in the USA.
>Create it in Germany; Spamhaus and Adblockplus have survived the legal
>challenges there.
>This hijacking thing is a reputation service.

I see that we have another Sacramento area resident chiming in on this, so
I'm inclined now to do so myself.

Here in our area, we have an entity that builds and maintains most of
the roads.  It's called CalTrans and it is a unit of the California
State government.  We also have an entity that decides what the rules
of the roads will be in this state, and it is called The California
Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).  That's also a unit of the California
State government.  Lastly we have a set of folks who will pull you over
and give you a breathalizer test if they happen to encounter you driving
on the LEFT side of I-5 at three AM in the morning.  Those folks are called
the California Highway Patrol (CHP).  And as shocking as this may sound
to some, the CHP is also a unit of the California State government.

Now, I know -exactly- what many here are thinking... How horrid!  How
monopolistic!  How could this greedy government have amassed such immense
power and authority, all unto itself?

Well, ya know, in various places and at various times in this country, the
idea of outsourcing community services like, for example, fire protection,
was already tried and found wanting.  In fact, in the movie "Gangs of New
York" early privatized fire departments were depicted both accurately and
really rather humorously, as multiple such groups showed up to a single
fire, only to end up getting into a brawl with one another as the affected
buildings were first looted and then burned to the ground.

This is just my way of saying that "outsourcing" the enforcement of the
clearly necessary rules-of-the-road to private parties is, and would be
a ludicriously unworkable solution, every bit as much as would be the
outsourcing of the war in Afghanistan to a private corporation (even
though *that* looney idea *has* actually been floated of late, at least
by the private parties who would stand to gain from that financially).
History has taken us down this road (of private entities privinding
public functions) before, and most of us, at least, have learned the
appropriate lesson.  It just doesn't work.

By way of analogy, ARIN paints the lines on the roads and strongly encourages
everyone to stay in their own lane and to try to drive at all times on the
RIGHT side of the road, rather than the left.  Despite that, there is always
some go-it-alone maverick who is determined to prove that no goddamn state
government is going to tell him what to do, and so we do, from time to time,
get guys driving out on I-5 on the wrong side and against traffic.  To say
that this is dangerous, both for him and for everybody else, would be a gross
understatement, and I, for one, am glad that we don't have to rely on either
the competence or the diligence of some private entity to try to get goofballs
who are intent on causing head-on collisions off the road.

That having been said, it is quite apparent that there are more than a few
go-it-alone mavericks in the ARIN region who will be damned before they
will allow -any- authority to tell them that they really ought not to be
doing the Internet equivalent of "driving on the left side of the road"
(and directly into oncoming traffic).

My response to such folks is just this:  OK.  Fine.  Have it yor own way.
Be a true maverick and go it alone.  Go your own way and obey the rules of
neither God nor man.  My only request is that you set up your own Internet
when you do that... a request that, to me at least, doesn't seem all that
unreasonable.  (And this relates back to the issue/question of private
peering arrangements.  I guess you could call me a "liberal" when it comes
to social issues, because I've always felt that whatever is done between
consenting adults behind closed doors is their business and not mine.  And
I see no reason why that sensible rule should not apply to routing as well
as other things. Your private routes are certainly none of -my- business,
and I, for one would never propose making it otherwise.)

The bottom line here is that ARIN and the other RIRs are, from time to time,
referred to as being parts of "Internet governance".  And it is not at all
ambiguous that ARIN paints the lines on the roads and encourages everyone
to stay in their own lanes and on the proper side of the road... as well
it should!

The question is:  What should be done with those occasional "rugged
individualists" that the U.S., at least, is so proud of and so famous 
for, all around the world, when one or more such "rugged individualists"
decide that the rules don't apply to them, and when they start driving down
the wrong side of I-5 at three AM?

I understand that the knee-jerk reaction in this region is going to be to
simply ignore the problem, to hope and pray that somebody else... perhaps
some private entity... is going to ride like the cavalry to the rescue and
just take care of it in a way that nobody has to think about, let alone
make any hard decisions about, and I understand that probably 90+% of
everybody on this list AND the companies they work for all are still
trying hard to preserve their own mental images of themselves... of the
independent entrepreneurial "rugged individualist" Marlboro man on horseback...
and that probably 90% of that 90% will be damned before they will ever submit
themselves, *voluntarility*, to any authority other than their own infallible
entrepreneurial instincts (which, after all, made this coutry great).  But
nontheless, I think that it is at not entirely a waste of breath or electrons
to try to get you all to see that the plains have now been settled, and
that this is not and should not be the Wild West anymore, and that preserving
it as such is actually damaging to your own companies, your own careers in
this industry, and your own financial interests.

Sorry to have to break the bad news to you all, but The Cowboy Era of the
Internet is over.  It's time to make a few simple rules and all agree to
live by them.  Because we're not all wild ass cowboys anymore.  We're
shopkeepers and farmers and bankers and dentists.  And this "driving on
the wrong side of the road" shit is bad for business.  It is not merely
high time... it is well PAST time that something materal should be done to
discourage it.  Something more than just trying to jawbone the problem into
submission.

And as I have noted above, the same "governance" entity that paints the
lines on the road should also be the one enforcing those lines and those
rules.  Anything else is just unworkable, as history has already amply
proven.

Finally, I say again, what I said above.  I have no problem with anybody
who wants to utterly ignore the community and/or the community's lines on
the pavement.  I just ask that they get their own Internet if they are going
to do that.

If someone wants to explain to me how this very minimalist request is totally
unreasonable, I'm all ears.


Regards,
rfg