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On 27 Aug 2021, at 12:50 PM, Owen DeLong via NANOG <<a href="mailto:nanog@nanog.org" class="">nanog@nanog.org</a>> wrote:<br class="">
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There are two sides to every story…
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<div class="">On Fri, 27 Aug 2021 at 09:44, Lu Heng <<a href="mailto:h.lu@anytimechinese.com" class=""></a><a href="mailto:jcurran@arin.net" class="">h</a>.<a href="mailto:lu@anytimechinese.com" class="">lu@anytimechinese.com</a>> wrote:<br class="">
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<div class="">Dear John:<br class="">
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The statements you made are very misleading.<br class="">
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Here are some clarifications:<br class="">
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Cloud Innovation is disputing AFRINIC’s claim that Cloud Innovation is<br class="">
in breach of the agreement. Cloud Innovation maintains that we are a<br class="">
compliant member.<br class="">
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1. While I make no comment regarding the justification of our<br class="">
resources. we have rights just like any other registrant to keep our<br class="">
justification material confidential. We would like to share some<br class="">
public data here:<br class="">
Cloud innovation accounts for 80% of all AFRINIC whois updates in 2021<br class="">
to date and in AFRINIC whois, over 10 million (roughly 10% of all<br class="">
AFRINIC space) IP addresses whois information has not been updated in<br class="">
more than 10 years. 40million (roughly 40%) IP addresses have not been<br class="">
updated in more than 5 years. Have all of them been required to<br class="">
provide re-justification while they don’t bother to update whois?<br class="">
313 out of 1800 members have not made a single assignment in their<br class="">
allocations more than a year after receiving. 641 member registered<br class="">
show less than 50% utilization, while AFRINIC’s CPM 5.5.1.9 requires<br class="">
at least 50% utilization. All of those member are in violation,<br class="">
including several major telecoms.<br class="">
However according to one press we saw, AFRINIC only audited 15 member<br class="">
and terminated 5 of them, Cloud Innovation being the most compliant<br class="">
member in terms of whois update and utilization data provided to<br class="">
AFRINIC as data shows above.<br class="">
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Mr. Lu and/or Owen - </div>
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<div>It is so nice to hear from you elaborate on your extensive righteous behavior. Perhaps you’ll indulge us a simple yes/no question?</div>
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<div>AFRINIC’s RSA contains the following statement - </div>
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<div><b class=""><i class="">(The Applicant Acknowledges…) that it is bestowed with an exclusive right of use of those number resources within the ambit of the “need” which it has justified in its application and for no other purpose during the currency of
the present agreement;</i></b></div>
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<div>Is Cloud Innovation’s use of the blocks in question within the remit and purpose for which they were originally justified? <br class="">
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<div class="">2. I did go to ARIN for resource, ARIN requested customer personal<br class="">
information down to street names, personal address, all of which we do<br class="">
not collect in our business from end users due to data privacy<br class="">
concerns. I have mentioned in one of ARIN’s meeting and received a<br class="">
consistent answer that it must be provided before the resources can be<br class="">
allocated. While I later understood it is part of ARIN policy, I still<br class="">
believe that it is an unwise policy which puts ARIN in possession of a<br class="">
large collection of personally identifying information (PII).<br class="">
So abandoning our ARIN application for resources after RIPE ran out,<br class="">
was a legitimate business decision and IMHO, a morally correct one<br class="">
made in order to protect the privacy of our customer’s.<br class="">
John's statement is misleading at best. John himself has repeatedly<br class="">
stated that ARIN does not deny requests, but that applicant’s often<br class="">
abandon requests when they are unwilling or unable to provide the<br class="">
requested data. That’s exactly what happened here. Contrary to John’s<br class="">
claim, that ARIN refused the application in question, the actual facts<br class="">
of the matter are that Outside Heaven chose to abandon its request<br class="">
rather than compromise the confidentiality of its customers and trust<br class="">
ARIN with such a significant amount of customer PII.<br class="">
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<div>You made an application, provided inconsistent data, and then did not respond when asked provide sufficient details to satisfy reasonable due diligence. After not hearing back after repeated requests, ARIN denied the request. </div>
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<div>If you prefer to characterize it as “abandoning your application” then that is fine. It is consistent with everything I stated, including that ARIN ultimately denied your request – and that such abandonment was in the face of queries for additional information
to clarify the inconsistencies in your request. We are generally able to get past these situations with the vast majority of organizations with legitimate need for the address space per ARIN policy, but I also acknowledge we cannot know how many of those
who did abandon were for non-qualification versus other reasons. </div>
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<div class="">5. Unless ARIN admits it has been given the justification submitted to<br class="">
AFRINIC by Cloud Innovation in past years, we don't think it is within<br class="">
ARIN’s mandate to comment whether it is being used for the same<br class="">
purpose or not. John, please clarify, have you received the</div>
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<div class="">justification material we submitted to AFRINIC? Do you have any inside<br class="">
knowledge about it? We would be very keen to know if AFRINIC has<br class="">
disclosed our private data to a third party in this process in<br class="">
violation of the very agreement they (unjustly) accuse us of<br class="">
breaching.<br class="">
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<div>I have no opinion regarding the justification submitted by Cloud Innovation’s for number resources from AFRINIC, and have not seen it. </div>
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<div>I _have_ asked a simple question of whether Cloud Innovation’s usage is within the remit and purpose for which they were originally justified, and I observe that this question has been asked repeated by many others in the AFRINIC community.</div>
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<div>This question does seem relevant to the dispute so please don’t be surprised if you are asked it quite often until such is resolved... </div>
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<div>Again – <i class="">Is Cloud Innovation’s use of the blocks in question within the remit and purpose for which they were originally justified? </i></div>
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<div class="">6. We find your discussion of the RIR stability fund most interesting…<br class="">
Please correct us if we misunderstand, but our understanding is that<br class="">
the fund requires the unanimous consent of all 5 RIR CEOs in order to<br class="">
be utilized. As such, it appears you are attempting to mislead the<br class="">
community by making a 20% promise as if it were a 100% assurance.<br class="">
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<div class="">My statement reads - </div>
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<div class=""><b class=""><i class="">If AFRINIC requests support in accordance with the Joint RIR Stability Fund, ARIN will support such a request. Furthermore, and without reservation, ARIN stands by its unwavering commitment to support AFRINIC and will
take any and all measures necessary to ensure that neither the African networking community, nor the global Internet number registry system, is operationally impacted during this period. AFRINIC was formed (and has accomplished so much) for the benefit of
the African networking community and ARIN stands with the community in dealing with those who seek to disrupt or exploit it for their own benefit.</i></b></div>
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<div class="">It’s fairly self-explanatory and of course pertains simply to ARIN’s support for AFRINIC during this period. If you did not take that away from your reading, hopefully that is now clear. </div>
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<div class="">For the above reasons, we think that Mr. Curran has not provided a<br class="">
balanced or fully accurate representation of the facts to the ARIN<br class="">
community here and we hope that the above clarification will help<br class="">
members of the community come to a more fully informed opinion.<br class="">
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<div>A vigorous discourse is a wonderful thing - I actually welcome your clarifications as noted above (e.g. you prefer to characterize your ARIN request as “abandoned” rather than it having been denied) </div>
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<div>You apparently can clarify quite a bit when it suits you, but still fail to respond to the most basic yes/no question -
<i class="">Is Cloud Innovation’s use of the blocks in question within the remit and purpose for which they were originally justified? </i></div>
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<div class="">Finally, while we realize that this is inappropriate for PPML, as it<br class="">
does not really touch on any ARIN policy discussion, we believe that<br class="">
Mr. Curran’s post could not be allowed to stand without rebuttal.<br class="">
Since he chose to make such a non-policy post to PPML, we felt that<br class="">
our posting of the rebuttal here was justified.<br class="">
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Unless Mr. Curran or other ARIN staff member(s) choose to further<br class="">
engage on this topic here, this will be our only post on the matter to<br class="">
this list. We would also welcome the opportunity to take the<br class="">
discussion to a more appropriate ARIN list if Mr. Curran prefers that<br class="">
alternative.<br class="">
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<div class="">Excellent point. I have taken the liberty of replying to Owen’s post here on nanog for clarity, but also suggest we continue this on arin-ppml so as to spare the NANOG community. </div>
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<div class="">Best wishes,</div>
<div class="">/John</div>
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<div class="">John Curran</div>
<div class="">President and CEO</div>
<div class="">American Registry for Internet Numbers</div>
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