[arin-ppml] nonsense about unrealized awareness from legacy resource holders

[John Santos]

What is poppycock is this ignorant post.


On 4/13/2022 12:51 AM, Jo Rhett wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2022, at 4:33 PM, John Curran wrote:
>> It’s much more basic than that - legacy resource holders received their blocks 
>> from parties who were issuing them pursuant to agreements with the 
>> US Government to do so, and under circumstances where the corresponding 
>> responsibilities were not clearly spelt out.  While responsibility for 
>> administration of the number resources has passed to ARIN, that doesn’t mean 
>> that any given legacy resource holder is aware of such a change, is aware that 
>> this community would expect good contact information to be maintained, or is 
>> aware of any other obligations that may get put into registry policy.
> 
> I'm sorry but this is utter nonsense. You weren't assigned this responsibility 
> last week, last month, even last decade. The idea that a legacy resource holder 
> could be ignorant of your assignment of responsibility almost 25 years after it 
> happened is poppycock.
> 
> In absolutely no legal context is any entity, be it a person, a business, or 
> even a conceptual entity allowed to disregard regulations because they occurred 
> after they received a resource. Am I allowed to ignore traffic laws created 
> after I purchased my car? Absolutely not. Is the DMV allowed to change its 
> regulations after I purchased my car? Certainly. Would the state of California 
> be allowed to replace the DMV with an entirely different entity with entirely 
> different regulations at their own whim? Absolutely.

The DMV is a government agency and the public roads belong to the government. 
ARIN is NOT a government agency, and the Internet is, for the most part, owned 
by common carriers in private business.

> 
> It's been 2 and a half decades, it's time to stop pandering this nonsense. I was 
> totally in favor of making exceptions for legacy resources back when this 
> started. Two decades later, when a majority of the people who received resources 
> under said agreements (raises hand) are retired or dead, and we're still making 
> exceptions for them?

Individuals may be retired or dead, but companies live on.  Universities live 
on. When my company was granted its Class C, I wrote the letter to the InterNIC 
and the response was addressed to my, but the Class C was granted to my company, 
not to me, and there is no way it is my personal property.

> 
> Please stop reinforcing this patent fantasy that "you can use this" on the back 
> of the envelope was a commercial contract guaranteeing anything. When I got my 
> first allocation from Jon it was on the back of the paper our request was 
> provided on. There was no guarantee of anything, it was entirely plausible that 
> the rules would change next week. The first time I got an allocation that had 
> anything like an assurance on it, the assurance was that it was only valid for 
> 24 months.  There was never, ever, any plausible expectation that this was a 
> lifetime guarantee assignment, forever and ever, amen. Back in those days 
> funding for the entire project was always in doubt, there was a real likelyhood 
> it could be shut down any week or month. These were never commercial contracts 
> (it was technically illegal to use for commercial purposes back in the "back of 
> the envelope" days), and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is full of crap.
> 
It wasn't the back of an envelope, it was a business letter, and of course it 
constitutes a binding contract.  There was nothing about it being for a limited 
duration.  Perpetual contracts and licenses are not uncommon, and unless there 
is a specific limited time, any contract is by default perpetual.  There were 
several decades between when the Internet consisted of ARPA, a half dozen 
computer and communications companies, and a dozen colleges, and the 
establishment of ARIN and the first RSA.  When I got our Class C in 1993, 
commercial use was definitely legal, and there was no RSA.  No one has the right 
to impose a contract on another party without mutual consent.

> Nobody I worked with in the days before the 24 months clause is still alive. The 
> people I trained when I left my role and moved to the west coast have retired 
> after long careers. How about we retire this nonsense at some point before 
> nobody who has ever known a legacy resource holder remains alive?

Despite the most strenuous efforts of the Covidiots, I have every intention of 
remaining alive for several more decades.

> 
> --
> Jo Rhett

-- 
John Santos
Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc.
781-861-0670 ext 539