Draft Policy ARIN-2014-14: Needs Attestation for some IPv4 Transfers - Revised

Tue Feb 24 12:17:13 EST 2015

ARIN-2014-14 has been revised. This draft policy is open for discussion
on this mailing list.

ARIN-2014-14 is below and can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2014_14.html

Regards,

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

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Draft Policy ARIN-2014-14
Needs Attestation for some IPv4 Transfers

Date: 24 Feb 2015

Problem Statement:

The process of 'needs testing' or 'needs basis' allocation has evolved
over the history of the Internet registry system. The earliest number
resource policy required that an operator intend to use the number
resources on an operational Internet Protocol network before the
resource would be registered to an organization. Organizations were
assigned either a Class A, B, or C block roughly depending on the
organization's size. With the implementation of CIDR, additional 'needs
testing' was done to right size allocations to fit organizations. These
testing requirements continued to evolve under various organizations
prior to the RIRs inception and then later formally under the RIR's
policy development process.

In the 2000s, ARIN began a systematic "trust but verify" process for
IPv4 requests. This was necessary due to both IPv4 address registration
hijackings in ARIN Whois and the accelerated amount of systematic fraud
being perpetrated on ARIN.

As IPv4 exhaustion occurred, some RIRs have reconsidered the necessity
of some of the needs testing requirements and implemented policies
which reduced the requirements on organizations to show need or
utilization for some transfer transactions with the RIR.

The cost of performing a needs assessment and auditing of this
information vs. the public benefit of restricting allocations to
specifically qualified organizations has been noted by some
organizations to be out of alignment. The ability to predict future use
toward a 24-month utilization rate can also be challenging for some
organizations and relies on projections and estimates rather than
verifiable facts. Thus, the current needs testing requirements may be
more than is necessary and desirable for small transfers. This policy
seeks to reduce the complexity of transfers by removing the utilization
needs testing requirement and replacing it with a needs attestation by
a corporate officer.

Additionally, other requirements are placed around the 'needs
attestation only' requirement to reduce the Number Resource Community's
concern that this type of policy could be abused for speculation or
hording. Furthermore, the policy includes a sunset clause to limit the
total number of transfers under this policy proposal. This sunset is
intended to force the community to reexamine the success or failure of
the practices contained in this policy proposal.

Policy statement:

Section 8.3

Replace the 'Conditions on recipient of the transfer' with
the following conditions.

Conditions on recipient of the transfer:

   The organization must sign an RSA.

   The resources transferred will be subject to current ARIN policies.

In addition, the recipient must meet one of the following requirements
sets:

1. The organization must demonstrate the need for up to a 24-month
supply of IP address resources under current ARIN policies.

OR

1.The organization, its parent(s), or subsidiary organizations, must
not have received IPv4 address resources, via transfer, within the past 
12 months.

2.An officer of the organization must attest that the IPv4 address
block is needed for and will be used on an operational network.

3.The maximum transfer size is /20.

4.Fewer than 5,000 needs attestation transfers have occurred.

Section 8.4