And so it ends...

Sat Feb 5 18:22:52 UTC 2011

John,
 It seams that by stating "Note that ARIN can't allow transfers contrary to the
community-developed policy" that you intend to say that ARIN, based on your current policies and processes, will not actively update whois information for legacy block holders that either "sub-assign" or "Transfer" segments of their legacy space to another entity.

Is this the case?  If so, as many others seam to be asking, do you and the ARIN legal representatives, feel that you can actually legally follow this course and do you feel that, as you had nothing to do with the assignment of this space that you have any real right to deny these services. The community expects you to to have a certain quality of information in the database and not offering updating services can present operational issues to those of us using the database as intended. 

James

----- Original Message -----
On Feb 3, 2011, at 6:38 PM, Benson Schliesser wrote:

> Having said that, it should be clear that I view ARIN "reclaiming" legacy addresses that aren't under contract (i.e. LRSA) as fraud, perhaps even in the legal sense of the word.  It might also be considered theft by some.  But outright reclaiming from ongoing address holders isn't a big concern of mine, because I doubt ARIN will go far down that path (if it goes at all).  My real concern is that ARIN might refuse to recognize legacy transfers, fail to update the Whois database, issue RPKI inappropriately, and cause real damage to live networks.  This would be bad for the networks that implement ARIN Whois-based policy, of course.  

Benson - 

ARIN provides legacy holders with WHOIS and IN-ADDR services without charge.
If a legacy holder simply wishes to make use of their resources and maintains 
current directory information, ARIN left them fairly undisturbed since its 
formation.  

Via the Legacy RSA, ARIN offers contractual assurances to legacy holders of 
ARIN providing these services, as well as certain protections from reclamation 
and policy changes.  Note that ARIN can't allow transfers contrary to the
community-developed policy, so legacy address holders who wish to do more
then just use their resources (e.g. transfer them) are encouraged to get
involved in the community to create policies that match their needs.

/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN