[arin-ppml] Of interest?

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <82B99677-6866-4118-96EC-0B7E13B1C02E at arin.net>, 
John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:

>ARIN has been quite aggressive in our anti-fraud efforts, and have received
>praise in that regard from law enforcement from many countries.   We do
>have the burden of also acting on factual information rather than hearsay
>and inference, and that differs from many in the anti-spam community.

That one is a bit below the belt.

I certainly have not and will not request ARIN to act on anything other
that independently verifiable facts.  It is an independently verifiable
fact that Oppobox LLC has itself asserted its location as Ohio.  It is
likewise an independently verifiable fact that the company is not now,
and has not been incorporated in the State of Ohio.  These are simple
facts, not "hearsay" or mere "inferences" cooked up in the private
fevered imaginations of some unreliable wild-eyed anti-spammers.

And as I have already asserted, ARIN would have done well... and done
better than it has done... to have at least made itself aware of these
facts.  If it had done so, then perhaps appropriate questions could
have been raised about all of this much much earlier, at the outset,
some 4+ years ago.

Quite certainly, Oppobox LLC has perpetrated a fraud on the State of
Ohio.  It has claimed to be there for four long years now, and self-
evidently, it has never paid a single dime in state taxes.  (It could not
have done so, since it does not even exist as far as the State of Ohio
is concerned.)

Unfortunately, the State of Ohio canot possibly find all such cases (of
companies claiming residence there but not actually registered there).
That is simply impractical.  But in each case where this company applied
for benefits or services to other agencies or organizations, its proper
legal existance could have been, and arguably should have been checked.
How far would the "Ohio" Oppobox LLC have gotten if it had applied for
a $1 million dollar loan to the federal Small Business Administration?
Not far, I would guess.

ARIN could easily have checked for the legal existence of these fradulent
Micfo entities in their alleged home states.  And if it had done so, it
would have uncovered the double frauds... against these several states,
and against ARIN itself.  It never did so.

>If you have a specific process that you'd like to see ARIN use to vet
>organizations, please write it up and submit it to the ARIN Consultation
>and Suggestion Process

I shall do so.  Thank you.

And for the benefit of those who may harbor any doubts about my motivations,
let me just ay this:  I'm tired of crooks on the Internet.  I am tired of
reading bald faced lies in "official" WHOIS records.  And I am not persuaded
that this is the best of all possible worlds.  That's really all there is
to it.


Regards,
rfg