CAIP

[Michael Dillon]

Even though this message comes from the IAHC list it does have some
relevance to ARIN. About a week and a half ago, one of the CAIP executive
in Canada posted a message to can.infohighway (USENET) in a thread about 
IP allocation registries in Canada. He seemed to think that Canada would
soon be taking over the IP allocation duties for our country again. I
spoke to Kim Hubbard briefly about this at the NANOG meeting and, as
usual, this was a CAIP plan that they hatched without consulting with
anyone else. Since this message from the IAHC list appears to indicate
some sort of closure on this issue I thought it would be relevant here.
In other words, saner heads have convinced the CAIP people that ARIN is
good and national IP registries are bad. 

Michael Dillon                   -               Internet & ISP Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-250-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael at memra.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 19:26:41 -0500 (EST)
From: "Richard J. Sexton" <richard at vrx.net>
To: iahc-discuss at iahc.org
Cc: drc at apnic.net
Subject: CAIP

Recently Micahel Dillon posted about CAIP and other Canajun (eh?) stuff
that was basically factual, except the facts were jumbled around a bit.

Since I was around for the formation of CAIP I thought I'd correct a few things.


Michael Dillon (michael at memra.com)

>Industry Canada is the government ministry that initiated the formation
>of CAIP with a plan to take over the .CA domain and IP allocation within

No. CAIP was started by Lorien Gable (interlog.com) John Mnemonic
(idirect.ca) and John Epstein (passport.ca) at the time when Bell
Canada began selling dial up analog IP on the same day that they 
tried to renegue on existing Centrex III contracts to ISPs. Industry
Canada was NOT involved. CAIP has many members today. I'm not
one of them; I have better uses for $500.

>Canada. Of course they never bothered to ask the .CA domain committee
>whether they needed help (they didn't and still don't)

Jon Postel (or the Internic, I don't rememebr) posted to usenet they
was seeking proposals to replace the .CA registrar, as he had lost his funding.
In Jon's words (pers. comms.) "The first resonable proposal to get here, wins".

I assume one never did, and with roughly 8000 .CA names, it was tough to
make a business case for the then free names.

As a sidebar, one of the fellows who is on the .CA committee accepts
.CA registrations ($50) but still does the UUCP maps (free).

>and they never
>bothered to discuss the IP allocation function with the Internic. After
>the University of Toronto dropped the IP allocation function, the duty was
>taken over by the Internic.

>However, CAIP had a couple of meetings at Industry Canada's offices in
>Ottawa where they hatched a scheme to have a secret committee make IP
>allocation and domain name decisions. The members of the committee
>would be kept secret and each member would have to swear a lifetime oath
>to keep all activities of the committee secret as well as keeping the
>identity of other committee members secret.

This part is correct. From the horses mouth:

=================
From: woods at weird.com (Greg A. Woods)
Organization: Planix, Inc.; Toronto, Ontario; Canada

 There was a point where CAIP had big plans to propose take-over
 of .CA with another secret comittee.  I was asked to fill out
 their on-line form and basically offer my views and I essentially
 told them to stick their ideas about secret committees where
 the sun don't shine.

================

So did everybody else and the novel concept went awsy. Techies uber alles.

>This same organization,
>CAIP, now has representatives of the RCMP or the Ontario Provincial Police
>speaking at their meetings on the subject of Internet porn. The only
>reason I'm not ashamed to be Canadian is that all these CAIP shenanigans
>are happening in Ontario and I left that province 16 years ago to live in 
>B.C. where people are more normal and some even have a clue.

CAIP thanked them very much and promptly ignord them.

These days CAIP is trying to get ISP access into the (TV) cable
infrastructure.

>Now CAIP has publicly stated that there are "plans" afoot to bring the
>IP allocation back into Canada. Some people never manage to get a clue,
>it seems. The job simply does not belong in Canada because it transcends
>the boundaries of the nation state. The Internic people do a darn good
>job and unlike the government bureacrats I have encountered, the Internic
>folks are smart and they are nice. Soon they will all be working for ARIN
>which is a significant move towards industry self-regulation and is
>a good thing. Anybody who wants more government interference in the
>Internet, no matter what country, needs their head examined.

>From Greg Woods again:

 I'm a member of that committee, and I've never know that it was supposed
 to be a secret.  The CAIP asked Rayan (uunet.ca) to form it.  We've had a
couple of
 conference calls, and lots of discussion on <ip-registry at uunet.ca>.
 It's basically stagnated since those of us who know the technical side
 have shut down the empire builders.  Michael is right -- Canada has no
 business being in the IP # allocation business -- it only makes sense
 for those regions that are truely geographically and network isolated.

While this was not my original stance, I now believe that IP allocations
in Canada do not belong in Canada and the interests of the Internet
are best served by ARIN handling this. The fees make me nervous, but
we'll see how that plays out.

--
richard at vrx.net
    In a little while it may be over. We may fail.
    But the rights for which we contend will not die.
                                            Louis Riel 1885