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ARIN-prop-133: No Vo</title></head><body>
<div>At 14:28 -0600 2/14/11, Benson Schliesser wrote:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>>For what it's worth, I personally agree with the perspective
quoted above.</div>
<div>>But I don't think it gets at the heart of the issue exposed
by prop 133. </div>
<div>>The question we must ask ourselves is whether ARIN is acting
appropriately</div>
<div>>by listing legacy resources *and extending restrictive policy
over the</div>
<div>>update of those listings*.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>It's been a while, so I don't know what the reference to
"restrictive policy" is. The way I think of this is,
if the legacy holders aren't going to participate in ARIN, then you
can't force them. If we decide to mess around with the listings
or even prevent the legacy holder from updating them, we are only
hurting our paying selves. If my neighbor's house was built
before my subdivision and he isn't gong to pay the homeowner's ransom
to the community, I still want to know what his emergency phone number
is. If his house is about to catch on fire and embers will blow
towards my shed, I need to call him.<br>
</div>
<div>>One way to look at this question is, as you have done, to
frame Whois as</div>
<div>>a service intended to benefit the broader Internet. If
we think in</div>
<div>>these terms, then the impetus is on accuracy of the data.
For some of</div>
<div>>that data, the "authority" to declare accuracy
rests with ARIN or another RIR.</div>
<div>>However, for the legacy Whois data there isn't a clearly
delegated</div>
<div>>"authority". Who is allowed to request
updates, and under what</div>
<div>>circumstances would ARIN be correct to deny them?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I don't think I want to pay ARIN to go so far as ensuring the
data is up todate and accurate. That's a tall order and would be
quite expensive. (I used to work at ARIN and for other domain
name registries.) Accuracy is nice, but even an stale hint is
beneficial, it might lead to the latest information. Besides, I
only need to contact my reclusive neighbor when there's a real need to
do so.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>>To give you an example: current policy is a bit like your
neighbors</div>
<div>>deciding who owns your house, and publishing a list of
neighborhood</div>
<div>>homeowners, without your consent. As long as you agree
with their</div>
<div>>published list there is no reason for you to worry. But
if they ever</div>
<div>>decided to "reclaim" your house and/or refuse to
acknowledge a "transfer"</div>
<div>>of your house to a new owner, well, that would be a different
story. </div>
<div>>You might not like the comparison to real property, which we
can debate. </div>
<div>>So take it further, if you want, and imagine this same kind
of scenario</div>
<div>>applied to other forms of property, intellectual property,
music rights,</div>
<div>>etc, and the issues become more complicated (and potential
liability</div>
<div>>becomes more expensive).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The only problem with analogies is that there are limits in their
applicability. (When the lines get crossed, discussion gets out
of hand.) I was really active in the RIR arena from 2002 to
2008. Admittedly, that's a long time ago now, but "taking
away" resources wasn't discussed.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>When it comes to transfers though I see the dilemma. If my
neighbor sells his house and tries to give us the new number of the
new owner, we balk saying "no one owns thie land, it's all part
of a cooperative." At this point we could stand on
principle and see his entry in our ledger go stale or recognize he's
not in the tribe and just record the new entry. (You can guess
what I'd opt for - the latter, that is.)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>>Another way to look at this question, as I have done with
prop 133, is</div>
<div>>to frame Whois as a service to benefit the address holders
listed within it.</div>
<div>>If we think in these terms, then it becomes clear that
"authority" is</div>
<div>>delegated by the address holder when they request service.
There should be</div>
<div>>no ambiguity about whether ARIN is acting appropriately,
because ARIN has</div>
<div>>a legally valid policy for identifying legitimate address
holders, accepting</div>
<div>>a request to provide services, etc.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I don't think that WhoIs is a benefit to the holders listed in
it.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The benefit of the registry is the protection of uniqueness.
This is why the central database is the most important thing in the
ARIN world. Like DNS, WhoIs is just a "report" run
from the database for the benefit of relying parties.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>>Now, getting back to my first comment, I agree that there are
open issues</div>
<div>>with prop 133. For instance, who provides in-addr and
Whois for legacy</div>
<div>>holders that don't choose to sign the LRSA? One
alternative is</div>
<div>>competitive post-allocation services such as those mentioned
at <a
href=
"http://www.circleid.com/posts/competition_to_regional_internet_registries_rir_for_post_allocation_service/"></a></div>
<div
>>http://www.circleid.com/posts/competition_to_regional_internet_r<span
></span>egistries_rir_for_post_allocation_service/</div>
<div>>and again this past weekend at <a
href=
"http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2011/2/12/4748945.html"
></a></div>
<div
>>http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2011/2/12/4748<span
></span>945.html.</div>
<div>></div>
<div>>Another alternative might be for ARIN to enable transfers
without requiring</div>
<div>>LRSA. But any approach requires a definition of
"legitimate address</div>
<div>>holder" in order to answer the fundamental question of
"authority".</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I think tying WhoIs and DNS to "determining the legitimate"
holder of a number resource to be too high of a bar. I don't
care if the guy next to me is a legit owner or a squatter when he has
the ability to get out the fire extinguisher and stop the fire from
harming my property. Oops, "property."</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The bottom line is - DNS and WhoIs hold information that is for
the benefit of general users of the Internet, including those funding
ARIN. Degrading the quality of information about non-ARIN (and
non-RIR) allocated resources in the DNS and WhoIs is just shooting the
membership in the foot.</div>
<div><br></div>
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