Draft Policy ARIN-2013-6: Allocation of IPv4 and IPv6 Address Space to Out-of-region Requestors

[ARIN]

Draft Policy ARIN-2013-6
Allocation of IPv4 and IPv6 Address Space to Out-of-region Requestors

On 20 June 2013 the ARIN Advisory Council (AC) accepted "ARIN-prop-189 
Allocation of IPv4 and IPv6 Address Space to Out-of-region Requestors" 
as a Draft Policy.

Draft Policy ARIN-2013-6 is below and can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2013_6.html

You are encouraged to discuss the merits and your concerns of Draft 
Policy 2013-6 on the Public Policy Mailing List.

The AC will evaluate the discussion in order to assess the conformance 
of this draft policy with ARIN's Principles of Internet Number Resource 
Policy as stated in the PDP. Specifically, these principles are:

  * Enabling Fair and Impartial Number Resource Administration
  * Technically Sound
  * Supported by the Community

The ARIN Policy Development Process (PDP) can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/pdp.html

Draft Policies and Proposals under discussion can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/index.html

Regards,

Communications and Member Services
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)


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Draft Policy ARIN-2013-6
Allocation of IPv4 and IPv6 Address Space to Out-of-region Requestors

Date: 25 June 2013

Problem Statement:

ARIN number resources should be used primarily in the ARIN region, for 
ARIN region organizations. There is currently no explicit policy guiding 
staff in this area, this proposal seeks to correct that.

Policy Statement:

Any entity (individual or organization) requesting ARIN issued IP blocks 
must provide ARIN with proof of an established legal presence in the 
designated ARIN region, and have a majority of their technical 
infrastructure and customers in the designated ARIN region. This 
requirement applies to both IPv4 and IPv6 address space.

Comments:

The proposal originator said, "Although we represent law enforcement, 
and have brought forth this issue based upon our concerns and experience 
from a law enforcement perspective, this is a problem in which the 
entire ARIN community has a stake".

As reported at the last meeting in Barbados, ARIN staff is having 
difficulty verifying organizations out-of-region. In many of the cases, 
particularly in VPS (Virtual Private Service), the only information 
received on these organizations by ARIN is a customer name and IP 
address. This information cannot be properly verified by ARIN. Accuracy 
of registration data is critical to not only law enforcement, but the 
greater ARIN community as it relates to abuse contact and complaints. In 
fact, most issues facing law enforcement are also shared by legitimate 
companies attempting, for instance, to identify an organization that has 
hijacked their IP address space.

The expedited depletion of IPv4 address space in the ARIN region 
certainly seems to negatively impact those organizations currently 
operating in the region that may need to return to ARIN for additional 
IPv4 address space. While law enforcementÂ’s concern is that criminal 
organizations outside of the ARIN region can easily and quickly request 
large blocks of IPv4 address space from ARIN, organizations that are not 
truly global organizations, but specific national companies from the 
RIPE and APNIC regions, also have this capability which is detrimental 
to true ARIN region organizations.

This policy proposal is re-enforcing practices the ARIN staff currently 
employs to ensure that ARIN IP space is used for and by companies that 
are legitimate and have a legitimate presence in the ARIN region. This 
policy will assist in defining clear criteria that will be helpful to 
ARIN staff and the community.

The primary role of RIRÂ’s is to manage and distribute public Internet 
address space within their respective regions. The problem brought forth 
here clearly undermines the current RIR model; if any organization can 
acquire IP address space from any region, what then is the purpose of 
the geographical breakdown of the five RIRs?