ARIN Emergency Policy Change

Thu Mar 26 18:04:47 UTC 2009

Joe Abley wrote:
> On 25-Mar-2009, at 18:24, Leo Bicknell wrote:
>> The ARIN Board has put forth an emergency policy change:
>>
>> https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2009_1.html
>
> For those not following the discussion on ppml, and perhaps not 
> especially familiar with the policu or the policy process, could you 
> either describe or give a concise link to a description of the context 
> for this change?

Textually, the change is fairly simple.  Proposal 2008-6 [1] was adopted 
by the BoT after a finding of consensus by the ARIN AC, and the relevant 
part reads:

--------------------
Policy statement:

Emergency Transfer Policy for IPv4 Addresses

For a period of 3 years from policy implementation, authorized resource 
holders served by ARIN may designate a recipient for number resources 
they release to ARIN.

Number resources may only be received under RSA in the exact amount 
which can be justified under ARIN resource-allocation policies.

Timetable for implementation:

This policy, once ratified by the ARIN Board of Trustees, would be 
implemented when either the free-pool of IANA addresses is exhausted or 
IPv4 address resources in the ARIN Region reach a threshold of scarcity 
recognized by the ARIN Board of Trustees as requiring this policy 
implementation.
--------------------

The BoT then proposed emergency policy 2009-1 [2], which has some minor 
editorial changes (e.g. section renumbering) and the following relevant 
text:

--------------------
*8.3 Transfers to Specified Recipients*

Number resources may be released, in whole or in part, to ARIN for 
transfer to another specified organizational recipient, by any 
authorized resource holder within the ARIN region.  Such transferred 
number resources may only be received by organizations that are within 
the ARIN region and can demonstrate the need for such resources in the 
exact amount which they can justify under current ARIN policies.
--------------------

Most notably, the revised text does not contain the 3-year "sunset" 
clause that was a fundamental part of 2008-6.  It is also unclear (to 
me) whether the "timetable for implementation" specified in 2008-6 also 
applies to 2009-1.  As to the remaining changes, you can decide for 
yourself whether the rewrite has a material effect on the type of IPv4 
address market this policy would create.

The BoT did not mention any relevant issues with the text of 2008-6 to 
the PPML, to the AC, or at the Public Policy Meetings it was discussed 
at prior to taking this action, nor has it (officially[3]) published any 
explanation for its changes, why it could not send 2008-6 back to the AC 
for modification, or why it believes there is an "emergency" that 
precludes this proposal following the normal PDP.  The use of the 
Emergency PDP requires a last call that ends 7 Apr 2009, less than a 
month before the next Public Policy Meeting (26-29 Apr 2009).

My opinion:

This policy should be rejected, regardless of its merits, because of how 
the BoT has (so far) handled it in violation of the spirit (though, 
admittedly, not the letter) of the process, how it disregards community 
consensus and attempts to sidestep community review, the complete and 
utter lack of transparency that we expect from ARIN, and the glaringly 
obvious lack of any "emergency" with a policy that isn't expected to be 
implemented for _at least_ another year or two.  If there is indeed a 
flaw in 2008-6 that needs correcting, let it be discussed at the meeting 
next month and the AC and BoT can then take the appropriate 
non-emergency action.

S

[1] https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2008_6.html
[2] https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2009_1.html
[3] The BoT Chair has posted several messages on PPML about this, but 
they do not appear to be official statements by the entire BoT.  I 
haven't noticed any other BoT members commenting.

-- 
Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

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