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Mon Jul 22 19:24:08 UTC 2019

On 22 Jul 2019, at 1:16 PM, William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:
> 
> Respectfully John, this wasn't a DBA or an individual figuring the org name field on the old email template couldn't be blank. A class-A was allocated to a _purpose_.

Bill - 

The block in question is a /8 research assignment made with a particular network name and a particular responsible technical contact, just as so many other research networks during that period; indeed, if that is what you meant by “purpose”, then you are correct.   Like so many of those early research networks, the evolution of the block over time was under control of the contact listed in the registry, and resulted in some being returned, some ending up with commercial firms, some with not-for-profit entities, etc.   

In the case of AMRPNET, in 2011 ARIN did approve update of the registration to a public benefit not-for-profit at the request of the registered contact.   

> You've not only allowed but encouraged that valuable resource to be reassigned to an organization, this ARDC, and then treated the organization as a proxy for the purpose. No one asked you to do that.

Again, ARIN was specifically requested to do exactly that by the authoritative contact, and it was correct to proceed given that the IP block was a general purpose IP address block absent any other policy guidance. 

> Nothing in the publicly vetted policies demanded that you attach organizations to the purpose-based allocations

You’ve suggested that this network was some special “purpose-based” allocation, but failed to point to any actual policy guidance that distinguishes it in that manner.    Note that we do have many such documents that identify a variety of purpose-based allocations – for example, RFC 5737 ("IPv4 Address Blocks Reserved for Documentation”),  RFC 6598 for 'Shared Address Space' for CGN, etc.  If you do have a IETF or IANA policy document applicable to AMPRNET that somehow has been overlooked, please provide it to ARIN as part of an Internet number resource fraud report, and we will promptly review and investigate. 

In the meantime, if you are curious about the actual IPv4 special-purpose assignments, you can find the complete list here: https://www.iana.org/assignments/iana-ipv4-special-registry/iana-ipv4-special-registry.xhtml – there’s quite a few, but AMPRNET is not one of them. 

Thanks, 
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers