[arin-ppml] Deceased Companies?

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <7EACAF7E-1F93-42FE-828A-5F9CA9A59AE7 at arin.net>, 
John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:

rfg> Although I have no objections whatsoever to giving my best effort to drafting
rfg> and defending a policy proposal on the topic of dissolved resource-holding
rfg> entities, I am well aware that the policy adoption process could possibly
rfg> take quite some months.  In the interm. what, if anything, does the CEO feel
rfg> either can or should be done, by staff, with respect to such dissolved entities
rfg> that may come to staff's attention?  Obviously, having clear and ratified policy
rfg> guidance in place is optimal, but I am not persuaded that the current absence
rfg> of such clear guidance entirely precludes ARIN staff from appropriately actioning
rfg> such cases on its own authority, consistant with ARIN's overall mission of being
rfg> good shepherds of limited resources.


>If you find a Whois entry that reflects resources assigned to a clearly dissolved entity,
>feel free to report it here:  https://account.arin.net/public/whoisinaccuracy/report
>(Include sufficient detail to facilitate our verification of this status) 
>
>We will endeavor to look into such situations and correct where possible - considering 
>that (as you did above) we have limited resources that must be prioritized across many 
>activities. 

My compliments John.  I literally cannot recall the last time I encountered such a
well-crafted and well-phrased non-committal non-responsive non-answer.

From where I am sitting, and based on my substantial knowledge of ARIN's past actions,
your answer sounds an awful lot like "No, we're not going to do that.  We have better
things to do."

Given your evident reluctance to actually answer the question, please allow me to ask
a few different questions.

Is it true that, as shown here: https://www.arin.net/resources/guide/ipv4/waiting_list/
there are currently approximately 407 different organizations that are awaiting the
availability of IPv4 free pool resources, and that some of these have been waiting in
the ARIN Wait List for very nearly seven full months for IPv4 block availability?

Would you agree or disagree with the clearly evident fact that the organization
denoted in the ARIN WHOIS data base via the handle CTC-211 is currently the
registrant of the equivalent of an entire /17 IPv4 block, and that this same
organization is and has been listed in public records available on the Colorado
Secretary of State's web site as having been formally dissolved, by the State,
in a formal legal action, nearly four full years ago?

Would you agree or disagree that whoever is using those several IPv4 blocks that
remain assigned to that organization (CTC-211) after it entered into an RSA contract
with ARIN *and* after that organization was legally dissolved by the State of Colorado
has no legal right to use the space, and that thus, whoever is doing that now is in
fact simply squatting on that /17 worth of valuable IPv4 space? 

Would you agree or disagree that if an entire /17 worth of IPv4 address space were
returned to the ARIN free pool, that this could be used, eventually, to satisfy the
pending requests of at least thirty two (32) different live and deserving organizations
that are currently languishing patiently on the ARIN wait list?

And finally, could you please explain, John, how your reluctance to reclaim those
valuable IPv4 assets from dissolved and now non-existant corporate entities comports
with ARIN's basic mission to be good shepherds of ARIN's finite and limited resources?
Because I'm not seeing it.

It is clear from your prior answer, quoted above, that it is your view is that
reclaiming scarce assets from dead and defunct corporate entities so that ARIN can
redistribute them to live and deserving organizations is, and properly should be
"low priority" for ARIN staff, like as if you all had something better or more
pressing to do.

Please explain this to me then.  What job is higher priority for you and for the
ARIN staff than actively managing the scarce resources that have been entrusted
to your care in a way so as to insure that worthy organizations can obtain those
resources in preference to illegal squatters?  Are you and the entire ARIN staff
all just too busy making reservations for your upcoming all-expense-paid trips to
Hollywood, California for the ARIN 50 meeting in October to allow you folks time
to intelligently administer the number resources that have been assigned to ARIN
by IANA?

I confess I'm confused.  How can you justify *not* immediately reclaiming these
resources John?  How can you justify that decision?  (And it *is* a decision,
even if the decision is to do nothing.)  How can you justify this decision to the
community, to the deserving organizations on the Wait List, or even to yourself?


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  For reference, these are the IPv4 blocks currently registered to CTC-211:

    45.61.192.0/18
    104.171.224.0/20
    104.232.128.0/19
    168.235.240.0/20

These are all direct allocations from ARIN.  In total, that is the equivalent of
an entire /17.  All of the requests that are now sitting patiently on the ARIN
IPv4 Wait List are of size /22 or smaller.  That math here is not hard.  At least
thirty two of those long-pending requests could be satisfied if ARIN simply asserted
its lawful rights to all of the above IPv4 space.  (And it is all 100% non-legacy
space, by the way.  Not that that matters.)

Are hospitals, school districts, and fire departments currently being left waiting
and wanting, only because ARIN is too preoccupied with trivia, too lackadaisical,
too timid, or too afriad of lawsuits to take back IPv4 space from squatters?  The
evidence is pretty clear and compelling I think.

P.P.S.  The organization denoted by the handle CTC-211 is of course just one of
two such long-dead corporate entities that I have mentioned here recently.  The
other one, denoted by CENTA-3, also has IPv4 blocks that are being illegally squatted
on, equal to an entire /20:

    74.116.64.0/21
    199.16.104.0/22
    208.74.64.0/22

The above blocks, if reclaimed by ARIN from the squatters currently using the
space, would allow ARIN to satisfy the long-pending requests of at least four (4)
deserving organizations that are currently waiting patiently on the Wait List.

As of this year, ARIN is 25 years old.  Every thinking person should grasp the
obvious implication of this simple fact.  Over the past 25 years numerous direct
customers of ARIN have gone belly up, have shuffled off this mortal coil, or have
otherwise gone to their graves.  As we speak, there are literally thousands upon
thousands of such cases on ARIN's books, and quite certainly well more than enough
to entirely eliminate both the artifically-created and artifically-maintained bogus
"shortage" of IPv4 addresses within the ARIN region _and_ also well more than enough
to entirely eliminate the entire current ARIN Wait List, and then some.

But if that happened, then I guess that various manufacturers of IPv6-capable gear,
together with any and all of the people who own shares in those companies might be
unhappy.  And we certainly can't have that, I suppose.