ARIN IP6 policy for those with legacy IP4 Space

Thu Apr 8 18:34:55 UTC 2010

On 04/08/2010 10:36 AM, Joe Greco wrote:
>> Legacy holders have been holding parts (possibly more than they would 
>> be able to justify from an RIR) of a finite global shared resource 
>> without sharing in the costs associated, and it's unfair to _them_ 
>> that they're not _entitled_ to do the same in the IPv6 space?
> 
> When ARIN's costs are largely legal costs to go "enforcing" v4 policy
> and a bureaucracy to go through all the policy and paperwork?  The
> finiteness of the resource is irrelevant; it does not cost ARIN any
> more or less to do its task in the v4 arena.  There is a cost to the
> global Internet for v4 depletion, yes, but ARIN is not paying any of
> us for forwarding table entries or forced use of NAT due to lack of
> space, so to imply that ARIN's expenses are in any way related to the
> finiteness of the resource is a laughable argument (you're 8 days 
> late).
> 
> It would be better to dismantle the current ARIN v6 framework and do
> a separate v6 RIR.  In v6, there's an extremely limited need to go
> battling things in court, one could reduce expenses simply by giving
> the benefit of the doubt and avoiding stuff like Kremen entirely.  In
> the old days, nearly anyone could request -and receive- a Class C or
> even Class B with very little more than some handwaving.  The main
> reason to tighten that up was depletion; with IPv6, it isn't clear
> that the allocation function needs to be any more complex than what
> used to exist, especially for organizations already holding v4 
> resources.
> 
> So, my challenges to you:
> 
> 1) Justify why we need a heavy bureaucracy such as ARIN for IPv6
>    numbering resources, 
> 
> 2) Tell me why something like the old pre-depletion pre-ARIN model
>    of InterNIC and just handing out prefixes with substantially less
>    paper-pushing wouldn't result in a cheaper-to-run RIR.

Just because the benefit of being cautious isn't clear doesn't mean we
should simply throw caution to the wind entirely and go back to the "old
ways."  It seems clear to many now that a lot of the legacy allocations,
/8's in particular were issued in a way that has left IPv4 inefficiently
allocated and with lack of any agreements by the resource holders to
have any responsibility to do anything about it.

If we just eliminated the RIRs and agreements governing terms of access
to v6 allocations, IF later, we find a problem with the process and
start to run out of space, we end up in the same situation.  Suddenly we
have to form these organizations again, and institute new allocation
policies for new allocations, but again lack any recourse for all those
people that "greedily" ate up as much space as they could.

I think there's a continued need to keep an organization in charge of
accounting for the space to whom we as resource holders are accountable
and whom is also accountable to us.  Later on, when we realize we've
gone wrong somewhere (and it will happen) and need to make changes to
policy, there is a process by which we can do it where all the parties
involved already have an established relationship.

I am not going to argue your second request.  It'd certainly be cheaper
to do things your way.  I just think it's a terrible idea.

-- 
Kevin Stange
Chief Technology Officer
Steadfast Networks
http://steadfast.net
Phone: 312-602-2689 ext. 203 | Fax: 312-602-2688 | Cell: 312-320-5867

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