<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Some confusion is edifying...</div><br><div><div>On Jun 18, 2008, at 2:54 PM, John Santos wrote:</div><br><blockquote type="cite">On Wed, 18 Jun 2008, David Schwartz wrote:<br><br><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">I don't think anyone who advocates a market in address space<br></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">thinks that implies ownership of address space. It implies<br></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">ownership of the right to use address space (i.e. a license<br></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">to use that unique set of integers, in the limited context of<br></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">the IPv4 Internet.)<br></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">If so, then that would be a MAJOR change to the set of rights wich<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">currently come with an ARIN allocation. Currently you have a right<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">to use those integers in devices which support the Internet Protocol<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">version 4. This holds whether or not you connect the set of devices<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">to the Internet or not. If you have a need for uniqueness, you can<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">apply to ARIN and get addresses. Many companies have done so, often<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">to use in VPNs or private internetworks (also called extranets) in<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">which companies connect to their trading partners.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">--Michael Dillon<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Your response is a non sequiter. He said that A implies B. You replied that<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">would be a major change because we have always felt that C was also true.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">However, there is no inconsistency between B and C. In fact, C is<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">independent of B.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Perhaps you took his "A implies only B" to mean that he was claiming your<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">particular superset of B was false. But he did no such thing. He simply said<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">it wasn't implied by A. However, that takes no position on its truth or<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">falsity.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">In this case:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">A = A market for address space<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">B = Ownership of a right to use address space only on the Internet<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">C = Assignment includes right to use address space in non-Internet contexts<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">In case it's not clear, he argued that a market in address space implies<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">that you can own the right to use address space in the limited context of<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">the IPv4 Internet (A implies or requires just B). He said nothing about use<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">of address space in any other context. He didn't say you couldn't get it or<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">didn't have it, he just said that only ownership of a right to use in the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">limited context of the Internet is required for a market in address space.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">And, in fact, when someone wants to "buy IP addresses", what they want is<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">the exclusive right to use those IP addresses on the public Internet. If<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">this right can be had and transferred, then there can be a market in address<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">space.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">DS<br></blockquote><br>That's what I meant in my followup, if it was a little incoherent.<br><br>Someone else has mail me privately (not sure if it is okay to quote<br>him directly) that the dispute with my original statement is not that<br>the rights go beyond what I said, but that there are any rights at<br>all at stake. He said there are not, but there is an explicit<br>guarantee of uniqueness. I claim that if this guarantee has any<br>meaning, then it implies a right. Otherwise it is no guarantee<br>at all. Maybe the dispute is over the meaning of the word "right"<br>or license. Or maybe Micheal is claiming that there is a broader<br>right than I posited, and my other correspondent is claiming<br>narrower rights.<br><br>As for extranets, ARIN doesn't grant you the right to use the<br>allocated (or assigned) addresses in a non-Internet context,<br>you already have the right to use *any* addresses you and<br>your trading partners agree to. </blockquote><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite">All that ARIN provides in this<br>context is a convenient allocation scheme. However, a typical<br>Internet user does not have any explicit contract or agreement<br>with the vast majority of other Internet users, so the RIR<br>guarantee of uniqueness and exclusivity matters.</blockquote><div><br></div><div>Here it sounded like you were asserting something like:</div><div><br></div><div>Whatever two parties agree to do bilaterally with respect to announcing and accepting any IPv4 address/prefix -- even one that might be used elsewhere in a full "public" capacity (i.e., with whatever expectation of uniqueness that an official RIR allocation implies) is entirely up to the two parties involved; no RIR policies or other external requirements or restrictions apply, at least in the context of that specific bilateral usage.</div><div><br></div><div>However, subsequent elaborations made the claim sound much broader -- if not quite a declaration of absolute (bilateral) contractual precedence over all other restrictions or requirements applicable to possession or use of Pv4 addresses. </div><div><br></div><div>And that's exactly the problem. </div><div><br></div><div>When you buy your PI IPv4 address space from Address Vendor X, are you required to participate fully in whois, to keep your whois records complete and up-to-date? If the presumed answer is "yes", where does the requirement come from? What are the mechanism(s) for ongoing verification/accuracy maintenance, and the default response in the event of noncompliance? In the event of a loss/failure of accuracy, what basis and mechanisms will exist to restore accuracy, or to pursue other remedies if that is not possible?</div><div><br></div><div>This is a real question, for me anyway, as I am having troubling imagining answers other than:</div><div><br></div><div>1. No mechanisms other than self-interest; that will be enough to guarantee that whois continues to be (or becomes) "good enough"<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>-- a faith which is not well supported by the quality of whois in the pre-RIR days, back when individual incentives really were the only mechanism to preserve accuracy (and the net was small, and largely noncommercial, and everyone was chummy). </div><div><br></div><div>2. Bilateral address transfer contracts will incorporate whois requirements</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>-- Just begs the same questions in a different form (where does the contractual language requirement come from?), along with many others -- e.g., who gets stuck with monitoring/verification, who is harmed and may seek redress in the event of a failure, etc. <br></div><div><br></div><div>3. Hierarchical resource certification will solve all of these problems</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>-- A plausible answer, but resource certification is a completely separate issue, which is not assumed much less required by the resource transfer proposals -- and one that is not exactly embraced with great enthusiasm by all IPv4 market advocates.</div><div><br></div><div>So, we had an interesting if somewhat ambiguous object lesson about identifiability tonight:</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=270247528043&Category=11175&_trksid=p3907.m29">http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=270247528043&Category=11175&_trksid=p3907.m29</a><br></div><div><br></div><div><div>The prankster may have intended to illustrate that a transfer market is inevitable or unstoppable -- or maybe that a transfer market is certain to bring an end to any illusions about the viability of self-provisioning/self-governance of address resource identifiability, in which case someone will no doubt come along and help us out with that...</div><div><br></div><div>Is there another alternative?</div><div><br></div><div>TV</div><div><br></div></div><div><br></div><div> </div></div></body></html>