arin representation

Tue Mar 25 03:19:56 UTC 2014

Randy,

I am not sure I understand the argument here.  If you think that ARIN is not representing the address space holders in proper fashion, how would we suggest correcting that?  If an address holder does not become a member (which is fairly easy to do if you care enough) how would we even know what their concerns or feelings are?  It is like any electoral process, if you choose not to represent yourself it is hard to complain about the outcomes.  ARIN does work under a contract so I would assume if there were serious concerns about their structure or conduct, there is some oversight being conducted.  

My earlier comments regarding legacy space holders and the number of address space holders goes to the heart of using those stats to make your assertion.  First of all, the number of /24s is not proportional to the total number of members  Whether I hold 50 or 1000 /24s, I am still one member.  I would assumes that holders of large amounts of space (like service providers) are more likely to be members than the entity that holds one smaller allocation for their business purposes.

Given that the US Gov't holds a vast amount of the legacy space skews the results a lot.  They might or might not be a "member" but they certainly hold a lot of influence in ARINs operation as the one who controls the contract.  If ARIN was to cross them the wrong way, they might not be holding that contract very long.

The reality of the Internet is that much of the policy and standard making comes from a small very technical minority of its users like us.  Most users of the Internet could care less about numbering policy and RFCs because they don't feel the impact of it, they just use and enjoy the technology.  They just don't care about the wizards behind the curtain.  Issues that look important inside our fishbowl do not mean much to the outside world.  Just ask every person that uses an IP address where they came from an see how many know or care.

If the general public was to feel much pain in the process they might ask more questions but it seems that in general they are sufficiently happy not to worry about the details.  As a service provider I was more concerned with ARIN policy than I am now as a commercial entity holding a couple of blocks.  When I was a provider I cared about allocation and process more because I had a continuous need for more space for growth.  Back then ARIN was new and the process changes were very fluid and hard to keep up with.  As a commercial entity with enough space for the future and no major expansion plans I am less concerned about ARIN policy short of them trying to pull back my space (which they seem to be doing everything possible to avoid).

John may be too polite to say so but I think asking him for information publicly on NANOG (which he very promptly responded to) and then publicly slamming ARINs process does not seem very fair to me.  ARIN has a process for having views like this to be heard and a process for taking the helm (or at least some of it) if you think enough people agree.  If John cares enough to monitor and respond to the community here on NANOG, I find it hard to believe that they don't care about our concerns.

Steven Naslund
Chicago IL