[arin-ppml] Consultation about Legacy Resources

[william manning]

I think I can lay claim to being the first to attempt a coordinated
recycling of IP space.  My efforts predate the RIR system, back when I
worked for Jon Postel.  Lets start with the /8 query.   Network assignments
that predate the "classfull"  A/B/C/D/E space were split, (much like IPv6)
into network/host.   At that point in time, circa 1970-1980, the
expectation was a small number of networks with hundreds of thousands of
hosts.  All netblock assignments were /8s.  When I started, it was
instructive to find that some companies had folded, contacts had died,
there was no process for verification but there was also no perceived
fiscal value to the numbers either.  When approached, the primary points
were;  its hard to renumber, and  experimental work on connecting
more/different devices together over a variety of media (sat, radio, x.25,
etc.  eventually even ethernet!)  The US Postal Service was never able to
quite map it's /8 into 9 digit zip-codes for email delivery, for example.
The DoD story is complex and has some odd twists via ownership which are
harder to correctly nuance in email.  Grab me at the next ARIN mtg or
corner JC for more details.   You might still find some public records in
the IEPG meeting minutes from the mid-90's

/Wm
310.322.8102

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 2:08 PM Fernando Frediani <fhfrediani at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello all.
>
> Recently I have been reading some content about IPv4 exhaustion in order
> to understand better the problematic and I am also working on some
> policy proposal drafts and wanted to do a consultation to the community
> that perhaps have knowledge about some of the points I would like to
> ask. It is about some Legacy Resources, how they stand and what may or
> not happen with them in the context of IPv4 exhaustion for the coming
> years.
>
> It is public knowledge the efforts made in the past for some legacy
> resource holders to hand it back to the community so RIRs could fairly
> distribute these resources to those who have real usage for them. There
> has been some success in it and some holders actually did it like
> Interop, DoD, BBN, Standford University and others.
> A while back when I first asked the question of why some holders which
> clearly didn't have usage for most of the IP space refused to return
> them back to IANA the explanation was kind of "acquired rights" which is
> kind of or partially understandable.
>
> 1) However two things that calls my attention are for example a) some
> private companies that are not in the telecom/internet industry holding
> a entire /8 and b) the amount of /8's assigned only to DoD (to the best
> of my knowledge 13 of them). I find it pretty hard for a private
> company, even with global presence be able to justify a entire /8 if
> they are not in the telecom/internet industry, including DoD, specially
> from some years ago when the IPv4 exhaustion came to discussion and the
> mechanisms that exists in order to make better usage of each single IPv4
> address.
> Question is: what were the results of these conversations with them and
> what were they justification to keep all these /8's at the time ?
>
> 2) With regards DoD prefixes specifically as mentioned there has been
> some movements to return some of the space back and that has been done,
> but I couldn't identify exactly which ones were them. Looking at IANA
> IPv4 assignments website I can see some of them designated directly to
> DoD themselves and others appear as "Administered by ARIN". So what is
> the exact difference between them and to those Administered by ARIN does
> it mean in any way that part of that space is not necessarily used by
> the designated entity.
>
> Note: My points are intended to understand better the exhaustion problem
> and find out better what has been happening with legacy resources given
> that many are still probably very underutilized. I don't really want to
> get back things like "IPv4 is over, deploy IPv6" or that these type of
> discussions delay IPv6 deployments. I can assure I do my share in
> implementing IPv6 everywhere I have some responsibility. The point is is
> simply to understand the legacy resources situation and what will happen
> with them in the coming years within this context.
>
> Many thanks and Best Regards
> Fernando
>
> _______________________________________________
> ARIN-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:
> https://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml
> Please contact info at arin.net if you experience any issues.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/attachments/20190726/3f4527ce/attachment.htm>