IPV4 as a Commodity for Profit

Tue Feb 19 07:33:53 UTC 2008

On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:23:53 +0100
Eliot Lear <lear at cisco.com> wrote:

> Steve,
> > Yah.  A market exists today, though it's perforce sub rosa.
> >
> > An interesting operational question is how to prevent deaggregation
> > as a result of a market.  If, say, a company isn't using half of its
> > address space, could it sell that half, to several other parties?
> > Can that be prevented by market means?
> >   
> 
> This is a strong argument for regulation of the market.  A regulated 
> market could provide liquidity needed by those who would otherwise
> find <unregulated> means to accomplish their ends (such as making
> private deals that are perhaps undetectable).

I have no problem with regulating markets -- I tend to think they work
better that way.  (He ducks, fending off the attacks of maddened
libertarians...)

> It provides an
> incentive for people to do the right thing, assuming the cost of
> doing so is not prohibitive (a big assumption if ever there was one).
> 
That's something the market will do very well: balancing the profits
against the cost of renumbering.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb