Lightly used IP addresses

Fri Aug 13 18:31:43 UTC 2010

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 02:15:51PM -0400, John R. Levine said:
  >>>I don't entirely understand the process.  Here's the flow chart as far
  >>>as I've figured it out:
  >>>
  >>>1.  A sells a /20 of IPv4 space to B for, say, $5,000
  >>>
  >>>2.  A tells ARIN to transfer the chunk to B
  >>>
  >>>3.  ARIN says no, B hasn't shown that they need it
  >>>
  >>>4.  A and B say screw it, and B announces the space anyway
  >>>
  >>>5.  ???
  >>
  >>6.	ARIN receives a fraud/abuse complaint that A's space is being used 
  >>by B.
  >>7.	ARIN discovers that A is no longer using the space in accordance 
  >>with their RSA
  >>8.	ARIN reclaims the space and A and B are left to figure out who owes 
  >>what to whom.
  >
  >9.  A and B ignore ARIN's email and continue to announce what they've been 
  >announcing.
  >
  >10.  ARIN attempts to allocate the /20 to someone else, who is not amused.
  >
  >Note that at this point ARIN presumably has no more v4 space left, so a 
  >threat never to allocate more space to A or B isn't very scary.  Given its 
  >limited practical leverage, ARIN is only effective insofar as its members 
  >and customers agree that playing by ARIN's rules is more beneficial than 
  >ignoring them.

Right, and Im answering my own question here, for (8) about the reclaiming - 
what upstream is going to stop carrying prefixes from a downstream that's
'illegally' announcing them? Is this upstream going to cut that customer off and
lose the revenue, just to satisfy ARIN's bleating? From what I gather, all that
ARIN can do is remove the NS records for the i-a.a reverse zone for the offending
block, making SMTP a little trickier from the block, but not much else.

Unless I didnt see the other large sticks ARIN's carrying? I've never seen them
send hired goons to anyone's door... yet?

/kc
-- 
Ken Chase - ken at heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA
Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front St. W.