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Kevin,<br>
<br>
You argued in essence that just because something is happening it
should not be condoned. That is a very fair argument. However, it has
to be balanced with ARIN's other priorities. In this case, as has been
repeatedly stated, if the regulatory authority and capability of ARIN
is such that the transfers cannot be stopped, then the result will be
that they will occur anyway, and that such transfers have a deleterious
impact elsewhere. Robert Bonomi's comments should not understated as a
necessary function of ARIN when he wrote the following:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">The <span class="moz-txt-underscore"><span
class="moz-txt-tag">_</span>only<span class="moz-txt-tag">_</span></span> "unresolved" question today, is whether or not the RIRs are going
to be 'in the loop' for those transactions, <b class="moz-txt-star"><span
class="moz-txt-tag">*</span>when<span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span></b> they occur.
</pre>
</blockquote>
Here are three cases where accuracy matters:<br>
<ul>
<li>Various law enforcement agencies and other parties seeking to
either protect the public or to protect private rights need to be able
to determine who is the responsible party for a given address, when it
can be shown that it was involved in either a criminal or tortuous
act. The whois database plays a key role in providing those people
information. It is by no means perfect, and it is not the only means
to provide the information, but it is never-the-less useful. By
encouraging people NOT to update the records through a black market,
the database accuracy can and will degrade over time.</li>
<li>The ability to resolve legitimate disputes over address space is
degraded when it can be shown that ARIN's records do not reflect
reality. If two customers attempt to use the same address space,
service providers may or may not turn to ARIN to understand who owns
the block. And if they do, customers may be able to challenge ARIN to
say that their record keeping is inaccurate.<br>
</li>
<li>Over the longer term, it should be possible to more tightly bind
the routing system to the records found in the ARIN database. This is,
perhaps, what John Schnizlein referred to as “cryptographic
saran-wrap”, but could eliminate a form of attack that currently can be
found on the Internet - the hijacking of prefixes for nefarious
purposes. Once again, in order for ARIN to perform this function, its
database must be sufficiently accurate that the service providers
believe they can trust the system. Absent that trust it will be very
difficult to secure the routing system as it is currently instantiated.</li>
</ul>
Does this mean that I believe IP transfer markets are appropriate? Not
necessarily. I believe the impact of such markets is unclear. What I
am saying is that we need to balance the moral argument you are
asserting against other legitimate social needs. This is a very long
form of demonstrating the law of unintended consequences. Doing
nothing will invoke this law. So will doing something. The choice is
really which goal ARIN should aspire to achieve.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<br>
Eliot Lear<br>
<br>
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