[arin-ppml] Reclamation of Number Resources

[John Curran]

On 16 Jul 2022, at 4:30 AM, Ronald F. Guilmette <rfg at tristatelogic.com<mailto:rfg at tristatelogic.com>> wrote:
...
Rather, I have elaborated a set of facts that, as far as I can tell, are
quite explicitly indicative of -someone- having messed up.

Interestingly, I do agree with that statement (“-someone- having messed up”)

That may be the member in question, or it could be ARIN.

I shall present a third alternative shortly.

And in fact, I have gone the other way by suggesting that it appears to
me more likely than not that the "suspicious fact pattern" I have described
may be attributed to a misstep on the part of ARIN.

Yes, I have taken note of your often repeated suggestion to that effect, and despite the lack of
any actual report, a review of the request in question was conducted.

The conclusion of the review is that the particular request was appropriated approved back in
2012 under the policy in effect at that time.

 There does seem to have been some deviance from written ARIN policy in this instance.

Yes, you’ve indicated that is your belief on this list several times in recent days.

I have most certainly *not* asked John to provide *any* details about how
his staff goes about reviewing member compliance with policy, nor would
I have any reason to do so.  NRPM Section 9 lays out quite clearly the
various criteria that ARIN should (must?) use to evaluate whether any
given member does or does not have "a real and substantial connection
with the ARIN region”.

NRPM section 9 was adopted __in 2016__ <https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/nrpm/changelog/#version-2016-2>

Please do not tell me that you expected ARIN to utilize those yet-to-written criteria during consideration
of a number resource request made in 2012?  Please tell me that your basis for your repeated allegations
on this list of ARIN failure to adhere to policy is based on more that a policy section that  _did not exist_
at the time of the request in question??

 You must think very little of me if you think
that I am unable to intuit how ARIN staff might go about the process of
simply verifying a member's "substantial connection with the ARIN region".
I am not sure why you would have such a low opinion of my capability in
this regard, especially given all of the relevant facts that I have found
and documented in relation to this specific case (SL-206).  I guess you
just think I'm a dunce.

I shall decline to opine of much of the above, but note that “intuition” is not at all required to determine
how ARIN considered such a request back in 2012, as ARIN (after seeing a quantity of requests from
entities with only a loose association to the region) raised the matter with the community in March 2013
by way of the ARIN 31 Public Policy Meeting / Policy Experience Report, pages 9 - 14,
<https://www.arin.net/vault/participate/meetings/reports/ARIN_31/PDF/monday/nobile_policy.pdf>

(This is what ARIN does when we see a circumstances where the implementation of existing policy
might not align with community expectations…)

I have presented a set of facts which can all be independently verified,
and which I assert do undeniably and beyond a reasonable doubt show that
a clear deviance from ARIN policy exists.

Which policy (or to be more point - which policy that was actually in effect in 2012 when the request
was considered) do you believe was violated?

No one, not even you, have denied that this is exactly what I have done, and exactly what I have
demonstrated.  So we have an apparent policy violation.  Now the only open questions are
(a) Whose fault is it that this arose? and (b) What should be done about it?

You suggested earlier “someone messed up” and I concurred.   I’ll further suggest that the crux of the
mistake may come down to someone examining a 2012 request against number resource policy that
was adopted in 2016.

What I have done is to raise the possibility that within ARIN, policy
enforcement may perhaps have been de-emphasized, ...

This was not that case - not only did ARIN enforce the applicable policy against the request at the
time, but we went out of way to inform the community about the potential that current policy might
not be sufficiently precise so as to result in unexpected outcomes when entities with only a loose
association to the region apply for resources.

In any event, even my raising of the question of ARIN priorities does not
in any way demean either the skills or the professionalism of any member
of the ARIN staff, let alone all of them.  At most, we are simply and only
discussing budget priorities and arguably well-founded considerations
relating to the avoidance of costly legal entanglements, and whether such
considerations should outweigh the value of additional transparency when
it comes to the final resolutions of "fishyness" reports submitted to ARIN.

ARIN does not shy away from performance of duties _ever_ due to potential litigation.
The community expects the community-developed number resource policy to be utilized
in management of the registry and this is done uniformly and without exception.

Thanks,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers



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