ARIN IP6 policy for those with legacy IP4 Space

Mon Apr 12 12:51:25 UTC 2010

> 
> 
> On Apr 11, 2010, at 9:17 AM, Joe Greco wrote:
> 
> >>> Put less tersely:
> >>> 
> >>> We were assigned space, under a policy whose purpose was primarily to
> >>> guarantee uniqueness in IPv4 numbering.  As with other legacy holders,
> >>> we obtained portable space to avoid the technical problems associated
> >>> with renumbering, problems with in-addr.arpa subdelegation, etc.
> >> 
> >> So far, correct.
> >> 
> >>> Part of that was an understanding that the space was ours (let's not
> >>> get distracted by any "ownership" debate, but just agree for the sake
> >>> of this point that it was definitely understood that we'd possess it).
> >>> This served the good of the Internet by promoting stability within an
> >>> AS and allowed us to spend engineering time on finer points (such as 
> >>> maintaining PTR's) rather than renumbering gear every time we changed
> >>> upstreams.
> >>> 
> >> This is fictitious unless you are claiming that your allocation predates:
> >> 
> >> RFC2050	November, 1996
> >> RFC1466	May, 1993
> >> RFC1174	August, 1990
> >> 
> >> Prior to that, it was less clear, but, the concept was still generally
> >> justified need so long as that need persisted.
> > 
> > Which ours does.
> > 
> >>> Eventually InterNIC was disbanded, and components went in various
> >>> directions.  ARIN landed the numbering assignment portion of InterNIC.
> >>> Along with that, maintenance of the legacy resources drifted along to
> >>> ARIN.
> >> 
> >> Actually, ARIN was spun off from InterNIC (containing most of the same
> >> staff that had been doing the job at InterNIC) well before InterNIC was
> >> disbanded.
> > 
> > Is there an effective difference or are you just quibbling?  For the
> > purposes of this discussion, I submit my description was suitable to
> > describe what happened.
> 
> Your description makes it sound like there was limited or no continuity
> between the former and the current registration services entity.
> 
> I point out that ARIN was formed run by and including most of the
> IP-related staff from InterNIC.
> 
> I consider that a substantive distinction.
> 
> >>> ARIN might not have a contract with us, or with other legacy holders.
> >>> It wasn't our choice for ARIN to be tasked with holding up InterNIC's
> >>> end of things.  However, it's likely that they've concluded that they
> >>> better do so, because if they don't, it'll probably turn into a costly
> >>> legal battle on many fronts, and I doubt ARIN has the budget for that.
> >> 
> >> This is going to be one of those situations that could become a
> >> legal battle on many fronts either way.  On the one hand you have
> >> legacy holders who have no contractual right to services from
> >> anyone (If you want to pursue InterNIC for failing to live up to
> >> whatever agreement you have/had with them, I wish you the
> >> very best of luck in that endeavor, especially since you don't
> >> have a written contract from them, either).
> >> 
> >> On the other hand, in a relatively short timeframe, you are likely
> >> to have litigants asking why ARIN has failed to reclaim/reuse
> >> the underutilized IPv4 space sitting in so many legacy registrations.
> >> 
> >> Which of those two bodies of litigants is larger or better funded
> >> is left as an exercise for the reader. Nonetheless, ARIN is
> >> going to be in an interesting position between those two
> >> groups (which one is rock and which is hard place is also
> >> left as an exercise for the reader) going forward regardless
> >> of what action is taken by ARIN in this area.
> >> 
> >> That is why the legacy RSA is important. It represents ARIN
> >> trying very hard to codify and defend the rights of the legacy
> >> holders.
> > 
> > Yes, but according to the statistics provided by Mr. Curran, it looks
> > like few legacy space holders are actually adopting the LRSA. 
> > 
> So far, yes. That's unfortunate.
> 
> > Like many tech people, you seem to believe that the absence of a 
> > "contract" means that there's no responsibility, and that InterNIC's
> > having been disbanded absolves ARIN from responsibility.  In the real
> > world, things are not so simple.  The courts have much experience at
> > looking at real world situations and determining what should happen.
> > These outcomes are not always predictable and frequently don't seem to
> > have obvious results, but they're generally expensive fights.
> 
> No, actually, quite the opposite.  I believe that BOTH legacy holders and
> ARIN have responsibilities even though there is no contract. 

Certainly legacy holders have some responsibilities.

> I believe
> that ARIN is, however, responsible to the community as it exists today
> and not in any way responsible to legacy holders who choose to
> ignore that community and their responsibilities to it.

And what, exactly, does that mean?  Aside from things that were
documented at the time we received our allocation, what sort of
"responsibilities" do we have?

We agreed to not allow anyone port away space.  We advertise our 
space as a single block.  Etc.

> The reality is that the community has evolved. For the most part, the
> community has been willing to let legacy holders live in their little
> reality distortion bubble and accommodated their eccentricities.
> I think that is as it should be, to some extent. On the other hand,
> I think the history now shows that ARIN's failure to immediately
> institute the same renewal pricing model on legacy holders as on
> new registrants has created an unfortunate disparity and a number
> of unfortunate perceptions.  Contrast this with APNIC and the
> domain registrars/registries shortly after the ARIN spinoff from
> InterNIC, where, yes, there was much grumbling from those of
> us who had legacy (domain, ip resources) from them, but, in the
> long run, we paid our fees and moved on.
> 
> Had ARIN done this on day one, perhaps it would have gone the
> same way. Instead, we have a situation where the mere mention
> of requiring legacy holders to pay a token annual fee like the rest
> of IP end-users in the ARIN region leads to discussions like this.

There's a difference between a mere token annual fee and the actual
signing away of various rights.  For some of us, the token annual 
fee isn't an issue because we're already paying it for a different
resource.

> FWIW, I'm a legacy holder myself, but, I have signed the LRSA
> and I do have IPv6 resources under an RSA as well.  No harm
> has come to me as a result and it is not costing me any more
> to have done so.  In fact, I got my IPv6 assignment for a good
> discount in the process, but, that deal is no longer available.
> 
> Frankly, I find it remarkably short-sighted that so many legacy
> holders have refused to sign the LRSA. Especially in light of
> the fact that if you are sitting on excess resources and want
> to be able to transfer them under NRPM 8.3, you will need
> to bring them under LRSA or RSA first and the successor who
> acquires them from you (under 8.2 or 8.3) will need to sign an
> RSA for the transfer to be valid.

That's only your opinion, and ARIN's pet legal theory.  At some
point, when addresses become more valuable, some cash-strapped 
/8-holder is going to see that they have 65K /24's that they can
sell for $5,000-$10,000 each, or better yet rent out annually,
and ARIN tries to enforce this new policy, and they have a huge
financial incentive to crush ARIN like a bug in the courts because
the new policies ARIN is trying to enforce do not resemble the 
ones under which they obtained the space.

> >>> As a legacy holder, we don't really care who is currently "responsible"
> >>> for legacy maintenance/etc.  However, whoever it is, if they're not
> >>> going to take on those responsibilities, that's a problem.
> >> 
> >> You assume that anyone is currently responsible.  What documentation
> >> do you have that there is any such responsibility?
> >> 
> >> As a point in fact, ARIN has, for the good of the community, extended
> >> the courtesy of maintaining those records and providing services
> >> to legacy holders free of charge because it is perceived as being
> >> in the best interests of the community.
> > 
> > That's only one possible interpretation.  A court might well reach a more
> > general conclusion that ARIN is the successor to InterNIC, and has agreed 
> > to honor legacy registrations.  That'd be inconvenient for ARIN, but is a 
> > very reasonable possible outcome.
> > 
> As a general rule, courts tend to rule that absent an exchange of value, there
> is no contract. They also tend to rule that contracts which contain significantly
> inequitable exchanges of value are invalid.
> 
> Since ARIN is collecting nothing from legacy holders and not getting
> funded by NSF or other US Government agency the way InterNIC was,
> it's hard to see where you would find the exchange of value to support
> that conclusion.

You're using the state of affairs NOW to dismantle an agreement that was
made THEN?

Lose your job and then tell the foreclosure court, "you should invalidate
this because the state of affairs changed, I no longer have a job and no
money to pay for the mortgage, so obviously I owe the bank nothing."

Legally, a change in your status doesn't necessarily affect your
responsibilies.

Further, given the purported role that InterNIC played, "exchange of
value" as a prerequisite is a rather questionable position to rely on;
InterNIC had motivations other than a purely financial one to organize
IP allocations.  The number assignment function is critical to allowing
the Internet to work smoothly.

> Additionally, it could be argued that by refusing to sign the LRSA or RSA
> and refusing to participate in the community on a level playing field with
> others, legacy holders are not meeting their obligations under your
> implied contract theory.

To compel someone to do anything in order to keep something that they've
already been assigned might also be viewed as onerous.

> IANAL, so I could be completely wrong here and this is just my personal
> opinion, not a statement of ARIN or the AC.

It's all theory until someone works it out in court.

> >>> The previous poster asked, "If you don't have a contract with ARIN, 
> >>> why should ARIN provide you with anything?"
> >>> 
> >>> Well, the flip side to that is, "ARIN doesn't have a contract with us,
> >>> but we still have copies of the InterNIC policies under which we were
> >>> assigned space, and ARIN undertook those duties, so ARIN is actually 
> >>> the one with significant worries if they were to try to pull anything,
> >>> otherwise, we don't really care."
> >> 
> >> Could you please provide those to Steve Ryan, John Curran, and,
> >> ideally, I'd like to see them too.
> >> 
> >>> Is that a suitable defense of that statement (which might not have
> >>> been saying quite what you thought)?
> >> 
> >> I don't know.  I have yet to see the content of the documents which
> >> you claim are your defense.
> > 
> > I'd be pleased to pull them off our backups for our normal hourly rates.
> > Otherwise, you're encouraged to do your own research.
> 
> I've done my own research... I've come up with nothing. You're the one
> claiming you have documentation to support your assertions...
> 
> To be blunt, put up or shut up.

Send your check for $350 to cover the first few hours of work to

sol.net Network Services
P.O. Box 16
Milwaukee, WI  53201-0016

And I'll be happy to have someone go digging through our data storage 
for the documents.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
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