DOD prefixes and AS8003 / GRSCORP

Mon Apr 26 17:18:17 UTC 2021

On 26 Apr 2021, at 11:17 AM, Bryan Fields <Bryan at bryanfields.net<mailto:Bryan at bryanfields.net>> wrote:

On 3/15/21 4:01 PM, Christopher Morrow wrote:
is it possible that the DoD:
 1) signed a lRSA (or really just an RSA)

Just re-read this; I don't think the Federal Government is required to sign
the standard ARIN agreement.  I believe they have a different agreement with
ARIN.  I did some searching, but can't find this easily on their website.

Maybe John can confirm this.

Byran -

A very reasonable question.  Note that ARIN does routinely change its registration services agreement (RSA) for governments – reference the last few q&a on the RSA FAQ - <https://www.arin.net/about/corporate/agreements/rsa_faq/> for specifics; it’s generally address issues regarding indemnification, bankruptcy, governing law, and/or binding arbitration that pertain to governments & their agencies and their ability to enter into agreements.

As per the CBO report noted earlier, the US DoD entered into an agreement that included both obtaining IPv6 number resources and returning potentially unused IPv4 number resources.  I can further note that they also sought clarification that they would be able to retain unused IPv4 number resources that DoD believed would be needed in the future by DoD or other parts of the US Government.  As ARIN was not in the business of reclaiming unused addresses (rather we encouraged the voluntary return of unused IPv4 addresses prior to the availability of the transfer policies), we provided them an explicit language to that effect.

Of course, the irony of the situation is that many years later a provision that was intended to reassure USG/DoD that ARIN would not take their “unused IPv4 address space” (so that could reutilized elsewhere in the USG) now reads like a requirement that requires such reuse or return to ARIN – hence the cited CBO report requirement that "Among other things, this is because DOD entered into an agreement with the American Registry for Internet Numbers. Specifically, this agreement states the department must return unused addresses to the registry.”  The provisions were never intended to constrain the USG/DoD any differently than any other party in the registry and given the availability of the transfer policies in the number resource policy manual we have made plain to the USG/DoD that ARIN is neither encouraging nor an impediment to the transfer of IPv4 number resources at this time.

I provide all of the above in the spirit of maximal transparency, but there are indeed some practical limits to what can be provided.  The community should know that there was no special deal – only a clarification that the USG sought that was both appropriate under the circumstances and comparable to our handling other organizations that wished to move address space around internally.

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers

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