The real issue

Wed Apr 22 03:53:39 UTC 2009

Shane Ronan wrote:
> Very simple, just do it.

Ha! We have some legacy IP space in continous use here at ASN13345 for 
over 12 years now that was recently "revoked" for a few weeks (only to 
be later restored via a transfer once the exact definition of 
"ownership" in a member-owned cooperative was hammered out).

Guess what stopped working in the interim? Well the whois records were 
gone and our abuse desk probably had a tiny decrease in complaints as a 
result. In some quarters that might be seen as a blessing, but we view 
abuse reports as cries for help from infected hosts that will become 
larger service outages if not addressed.

Also the in-addr services went away, affecting about a half dozen mail 
servers out of several thousand hosts in the "revoked" delegation. We 
did not receive one single call or complaint about connectivity in that 
duration apart from the in-addr loss, and those customers were offered 
smart host use or replacement IPs for the duration. The ones who chose 
the smart host continued to use the "revoked" IP space without problem 
after that.

The Internet's greatest strength and greatest weakness is the lack of a 
central authority who can "just do it". I for one am happy it is that 
way. It's part of what makes us an *autonomous* system, sovereign of our 
own little kingdom.

Mike