LAST CALL - Recommended Draft Policy ARIN-2018-4: Clarification on Temporary Sub-Assignments

[ARIN]

The ARIN Advisory Council (AC) met on 5 October 2018 and decided to send 
the following Recommended Draft Policy to Last Call:

ARIN-2018-4: Clarification on Temporary Sub-Assignments

Feedback is encouraged during the Last Call period. All comments should 
be provided to the Public Policy Mailing List. Last Call will expire on 
24 October 2018.

The Recommended Draft Policy text is below and available at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/

The ARIN Policy Development Process is available at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/pdp.html

Regards,

Sean Hopkins
Policy Analyst
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)



Recommended Draft Policy ARIN-2018-4: Clarification on Temporary 
Sub-Assignments

Advisory Council Statement regarding edits made post-ARIN 42:

During the ARIN 42 Meeting, a suggestion was made that the term 
“transient” would be a more fitting term for the type of use cases the 
RDP is meant to capture. The AC considered this suggestion and agreed 
that this term addresses the problem statement more fittingly than the 
existing language. As such, and with ARIN Staff’s consent, the the word 
“temporary” was changed to “transient” in the policy text at the same 
time the RDP was advanced to Last Call.

Problem Statement:

When the policy was drafted, the concept of assignments/sub-assignments 
did not consider the use of IP addresses in hotspots, or the use of IP 
addresses by guests or employees in Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and 
many other similar cases.

Additionally, the IETF has recently approved the use of a unique IPv6 
/64 prefix per interface/host (RFC8273) instead of a unique address. 
This, for example, allows users to connect to a hotspot, receive a /64 
such that they are "isolated" from other users (for reasons of security, 
regulatory requirements, etc.) and they can also use multiple virtual 
machines on their devices with a unique address for each one (within the 
same /64). Section 2.5 (Definitions/Allocate and Assign), explicitly 
prohibits such assignments, stating that assignments and reassignments 
are intended “for the exclusive use of the recipient organization”.

This proposal clarifies this situation in this regard by means of 
additional clarifying language in the Definitions section.

Policy Statement

Actual Text:

2.5. Allocation, Assignment, Reallocation, Reassignment

Allocation - Address space delegated to an organization directly by ARIN 
for the purpose of subsequent distribution by the recipient organization 
to other parties.

Assignment - Address space delegated to an organization directly by ARIN 
for the exclusive use of the recipient organization.

Reallocation - Address space sub-delegated to an organization by an 
upstream provider for the purpose of subsequent distribution by the 
recipient organization to other parties.

Reassignment - Address space sub-delegated to an organization by an 
upstream provider for the exclusive use of the recipient organization.

New Text (Additional language in bold):

2.5. Allocation, Assignment, Reallocation, Reassignment

Allocation - Address space delegated to an organization directly by ARIN 
for the purpose of subsequent distribution by the recipient organization 
to other parties.

Assignment - Address space delegated to an organization directly by ARIN 
for the exclusive use of the recipient organization.

Reallocation - Address space sub-delegated to an organization by an 
upstream provider for the purpose of subsequent distribution by the 
recipient organization to other parties.

Reassignment - Address space sub-delegated to an organization by an 
upstream provider for the exclusive use of the recipient organization.

Note that the incidental or transient use of address space by third 
parties shall not be considered a reassignment or a violation of the 
exclusive use criterion.

Comments

Timetable for implementation: Immediate

Anything else:

Situation in other regions:

This situation, has already been corrected in RIPE, and the policy was 
updated in a similar way, even if right now there is a small discrepancy 
between the policy text that reached consensus and the RIPE NCC Impact 
Analysis. A new policy proposal has been submitted to amend that, and 
the text is the same as presented by this proposal at ARIN. Same text 
has also been submitted to AfriNIC, LACNIC and APNIC.