Authority over IANA & IP #s was Re: 206.82.160.0/22

Donald E. Eastlake 3rd dee at cybercash.com
Fri Sep 22 21:17:57 UTC 1995


I'm puzzled why anyone would think that, these days, IANA is under
US DoD authority.  If IANA were under any US Goverment authority,
it would be NSF.  But IANA is appointed by the IAB which is not
under US gov authority except to the extent that it has ties to
ISOC and ISOC is incorporated in the US.

Like most "authority" in the Internet, IANA controls the IP address
space because it is to everyone's advantage to cooperate.  Anyone can
get up a machine and use any IP address they want, they will just have
a lot of trouble talking to anyone else if they don't coordinate with
IANA (or actually the registries to whom IANA has delegated almost all
the day to day coordination activities).

Donald

On Fri, 22 Sep 1995, Gordon Cook wrote:

> Well I am pleased to see this from Hans Werner too -- especiAlly the 
> lines of historical authority .....
> 
> he said:
> 
> formally I guess one would claim that the
> Internet address space is the personal property of the IANA instrument
> of the United States Department of Defense, if that is what you like.
> I would prefer to think that the Internet evolved so much over the last
> ten years or so into the public realm, that the address and naming
> spaces have become public property. Instead of bitching about the
> InterNIC, NSF, ARPA, IANA, whoever, you guys should thank them for how
> far they got things driven, and whet they fostered and allowed to
> transition to the international private sector. [end of Hans Werner quote]
> 
> Cook speaking:
> 
> Are we hearing then that **ARPA has given up any and all of its authority 
> over IANA**?  That DOD no longer claims to own IP numbers? Hans Werner, 
> I'd prefer for you to be precisely correct in your assertion about the 
> public property nature of IANA, IP numbers etc.  I'd love to thank Arpa 
> for giving freedom to IANA and DOD for doing the same to IP numbers.  But 
> I have not seen any evidence that they have indeed done this.  If they 
> have perhaps the relevant people  at ARPA and DOD would come out and 
> confirm just exactly what they consider their current authority over IANA 
> and IP numbers to be?
> 
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> 
> On Fri, 22 Sep 1995 Eric.M.Aupperle at um.cc.umich.edu wrote:
> 
> > Hans-Werner, I'm pleased to see you still tell it like it is. :-)
> > Hope all is well with you and your family. Eric
> > 
> > 
> 

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