ARIN Suggestions

[Jim Fleming]

On Wednesday, February 26, 1997 1:06 PM, John Curran[SMTP:jcurran at bbnplanet.com] wrote:
@ At 10:28 2/26/97, Jim Fleming wrote:
@ >
@ >I have suggested before that no Network Solutions, Inc.
@ >employees, past, present or future be allowed to be
@ >involved until their Cooperative Agreement with
@ >the U.S. Government ends in September 1998.
@ 
@ I understand that suggestion, but would prefer to have
@ some folks who understand the existing operational 
@ systems and procedures come along to increase the 
@ probability of smooth transition.  We've seen some very
@ bad transitions in the past when registry functions were
@ handed off to new staff and organizations, and I'd rather
@ reduce that risk as much as possible.
@ 

We have to agree to disagree.

I prefer that those people stick to the NSF contract they
signed. I also think those people have a group to support
that may get lost if they jump into the private sector.
The FNC is one such group. They are meeting tomorrow.

I also prefer to allow the new groups to have a working
operation to observe. They have until September 1998
to observe these operations.

Keep in mind that nothing that I know of is stopping
people from leaving the InterNIC to start ARIN using
the model being pioneered by the TLD registries and
Root Name Server confederations that are popping up.

Just because someone wants to go start their own
company is no reason to close the InterNIC. I left
AT&T and they did not close their doors...:-)

@ >@ I still suggest that you help fund ARIN with some
@ >@ domain name registrations as part of the business plan
@ >@ but if you feel you can make a go of it with just IP
@ >@ addresses, God love ya...
@ 
@ The intent is to make it self-sustaining and not dependent
@ on the DNS allocations.  I guess one alternative would be
@ something along the lines of a "domain tax" which would be
@ taken from name registry providers for ip registry providers,
@ but that seems rather arbitrary to me since they are going
@ to be significantly different markets.
@  

Many companies serve different markets with the
same base of "core competance".

The banking industry is a good example. I will
not go into detail.

In my opinion, the "registry industry" is too new to
make decisions at this early stage about what works
and does not work.

Again, if an independent group wants to take the BBN
/8 and start an IP only address registry then have at it.

That is different from developing a model or prototype
under the claim of NSF and IANA endorsement and
with an ad on the InterNIC web site.When people see
that ad and read those endorsements they draw very
different conclusions than if they read it on the BBN
web site.

@ >I suggest that ARIN use the following /8s...
@ >
@ >4.0.0.0 BBN Planet (NET-SATNET)
@ >8.0.0.0 Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. (NET-BBN-NET-TEMP)
@ >46.0.0.0        Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. (NET-BBNNET)
@ 
@ Thanks Jim...  it's the thought that counts.  ;-)
@ 
@ Since we're on the topic (and along the lines of disclosure), 
@ I've pretty well extracted myself from BBN's IP assignment 
@ processs and will keep that distance for the duration of 
@ trustee term (one can hope for a short term, no? :-)  BBN
@ does have several class A address allocations, but did agreed
@ last year to free these up as soon as possible for return and
@ to make future allocations to customers from blocks received
@ based on the same criteria as any other ISP.
@ 

This sounds good but let's not mix apples and oranges...

I was suggesting that BBN use that space to become an
IP Address Registry which may have nothing to do with
BBNs subscribers.

For some reason, people with /8s can not fathom opening
a registry and allocating space to a paying (leasing) customer
when they do not have that customer on their network.

I suspect that is because these companies do not have
the registry infrastructure in place and would not know
what to do if someone called or wrote to request leasing
a /19.

A great disservice has been done to the Internet by making
people tightly tie IP address allocations to "upstream providers".
IP address allocations should have been tied to REGISTRIES.

Once someone leases an allocation, then they should have
been instructed how to notify their upstream providers about
announcing their routes.

This whole thing reminds me of software I have seen that
should be written with pointers and dynamic memory allocation.
Instead, the indirections were removed from the system and
now we have a brittle sticky mess. (Peanut Brittle ?)

@ >I have also suggested that other "start-up" IP registries
@ >only be given one /8. There are not that many. If you
@ >want to play on a level playing field, then maybe only
@ >one of the above should be used and the others be
@ >returned...
@ 
@ I believe that it's very early to talk about multiple 
@ registries (other than ISP-based registries) at the 
@ present time.  We (I?) do not know how to handle large 
@ scale routing of assignments which are not topologically
@ aligned (although I look forward to advice on this topic
@ if someone has a solution to this problem - you have 
@ noted some thoughts in this area in the past).
@ 

I strongly disagree with the above. I heard this same
thing about DNS, TLDs, the US domain, IPv6, etc.,etc.,etc.

Rather than early, I would describe the situation
as rather late...

I find it interesting that the InterNIC is now responding
to trends set by others, for example the TRUE Root Name
Servers they are deploying which will help distribute
load and decouple .COM.

I also find it interesting that the timing of ARIN and
the rush to announce does not match your "go slow"
approach. It appears that you want others to go slow
while you folks catch up...

Sorry John, I call them as I see them...

No one is slowing down over here...we saw that
party line for 18 months on the TLD debates and
we have seen the result....we might not have
the most expensive equipment but we are not stupid...

@ I do believe that multiple registries for IPv6 should be
@ considered, but that is a option that should be explored
@ and decided by the Advisory Committee once it's underway.
@ 

Even though someone from the InterNIC posted that
ARIN is about IPv4 only...I assume you can find your way...

@ >@ I am mostly interested in the types of comments
@ >@ you have made. I trust that you and your company (BBN Planet)
@ >@ will "do the right thing". This entire industry is largely
@ >@ built on trust. That is what makes the net "work"...
@ 
@ BBN is trying to "do the right thing" by making my time
@ available to serve as needed, but they have no other 
@ involvement in ARIN, other than one of the ISP's which 
@ will use such services.
@ 

Great...glad to see BBN is helping the new registry industry...

@ I will try to do the "right thing" as a trustee, but need 
@ folks to read the documents and provide input anchored in 
@ the realities of the situation.  ARIN may not be what we'd
@ create as the ultimate structure for IP registrations if 
@ we were working from a clean slate, but I do believe it is
@ a viable solution for moving the IP allocation process to
@ something which is self-funded and self-governed.
@ 

Again, as I suggested, why don't people go do that....?

Why do they need to use the InterNIC as a springboard ?

If NSI wants to invest in a private company let them do that...
If SAIC wants to capitalize the company they could do it...

Look at the history, Michael St. Johns used to be with
the U.S. Government and he went to @Home. Paul
Mockapetris used to be with USC/ISI and he went to
@Home and now is at Software.com. Note the IP
addresses Paul obtained for @Home are still @Home
the last I looked.

Do people think they can take IP address blocks with them?

--
Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation

e-mail:
JimFleming at unety.net
JimFleming at unety.s0.g0 (EDNS/IPv8)