[arin-ppml] Change of Use and ARIN (was: Re: AFRINIC And The Stability Of The Internet Number Registry System)

[William Herrin]

On Sat, Sep 4, 2021 at 1:32 PM John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:
> As such, your statement "A prohibition on leasing addresses is not
> enforceable.” looks to be far more definitive than might be the case.

Hi John,

I defy you to write such a proposal that isn't 10 minutes work and
negligible expense for an address lessor to circumvent. I've tried and
come up empty.

Consider some of the permutations on the lease of "IP addresses and
network infrastructure."

1. /24 address space and right to announce with BGP. No network.

2. /24 address space and right to announce with BGP. Dialup modem in
Kansas will accept BGP announcement. Customer buys primary transit
elsewhere.

3. /24 address space and right to announce with BGP. Linux virtual
machine running FRRouting under Customer's control in ISP datacenter
with some bandwidth. Customer buys primary transit elsewhere.

4. /24 address space and right to announce with BGP. Gigabit port on
ISP switch VLANed to router with a BGP session dedicated to customer
at ISP datacenter. Burstable bandwidth from zero mbps. Up to customer
to buy telco lines to connect to it. Customer buys primary transit
elsewhere.

5. /24 address space and right to announce with BGP. T1 link for
customer. Customer buys other (primary) transit elsewhere.

6. /24 address space and right to announce with BGP. Primary gigabit
link. Customer buys a secondary elsewhere.


The first 4 of these are functionally the same for someone whose
-intent- is to lease addresses without significantly investing in
network infrastructure. And how does ARIN determine the 5th is
actually a different situation than the 4th?

Perhaps you take a different vector. The ISP can be non-primary
transit for no more than 5% of its address space. Or 10%. Or 25%.
Whatever percentage it takes to stop the modem/virtual/empty port
model without also banning Amazon.

Where would a policy draw the line between "this is an ISP" and "this
is someone leasing addresses?" And who do you destroy as a result,
since once you have the rule you can't make arbitrary and capricious
exceptions when someone reasonable comes along and says, "surely you
didn't mean me!"

> ARIN does not actually operate as an automaton

Yes, I know. And you know that when the line is drawn too fine you get
into legal trouble, so ARIN errs on the side of granting requests for
which there's a reasonable argument that they comply with policy.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William Herrin
bill at herrin.us
https://bill.herrin.us/