[139745] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: IPv4 address exchange
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Conrad)
Mon Apr 18 22:35:47 2011
From: David Conrad <drc@virtualized.org>
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTikDN+LkBLF+V0G3f+D9hVW3ptcdXA@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 19:35:34 -0700
To: Jeff Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Jeff,
On Apr 18, 2011, at 6:15 PM, Jeff Wheeler wrote:
> ARIN has all the buy-in they need: No transit network will (except by
> act of omission/mistake) allow you to announce IPs that aren't
> registered to you in an RIR database, or delegated to you by the
> registrant of those IPs.
And yet, Ron has recently raged on this list about hijacked prefixes =
used for spamming, so clearly "no transit network" is inaccurate.
Regardless, for sake of argument, let's assume ARIN refused to recognize =
the Microsoft/Nortel sale and Microsoft deploys a few prefixes of those =
666K addresses for (say) new MSN services. Do you think ISPs, =
particularly the larger ones, all over the world would refuse to accept =
those announcements (especially when their call centers start getting =
calls from irate customers who aren't able to gain access to MSN =
services)?
> If we didn't have ARIN, we would probably have one of two things:
Just to be clear, I don't believe the suggestion is that ARIN goes away, =
rather that "post allocation services" (e.g., reverse DNS, registration =
maintenance, etc.) for IPv4 no longer be a geographical monopoly. =
However, taking the bait:
> 1) no "regulator" at all, thus BGP anarchy (we came surprisingly close =
to that in the 1990s at least once)
And the solution to that "BGP anarchy" (by which I assume you mean a =
flood of long prefixes) in the 1990s was some ISPs deploying prefix =
length filters to protect their own infrastructures. Been there, got =
several t-shirts. Yes, over time, the sales/marketing folks will force =
the network engineers to remove the filters once hardware has been =
upgraded, but once established, minimum prefix lengths (at least the =
perception of them) seem to have a long half-life.
It's also true that ARIN (at least currently, before RPKI is deployed) =
has no control over routing policy so suggesting that they regulate BGP =
anarchy may not be accurate.
> 2) a worse "regulator" who is totally uninterested in the small ISP / =
hosting shop / Fortune 50,000, as opposed to the Fortune 500
We're talking about IPv4 addresses which will (soon) be unavailable from =
the RIRs because the free pool has been exhausted. The small ISP/hosting =
shop/Fortune 50,000 who have not already taken steps to adjust to this =
new reality will simply be screwed regardless of what ARIN or the other =
RIRs do. Even if alternative "post allocation services" providers didn't =
exist, the Fortune 500 are going to be able to pay more to the folks =
with allocated-but-unused addresses than the 'all but Fortune 500' and I =
have no doubt that the Fortune 500 will be able to justify "need" (to =
any level of detail) just as well as the 'all but Fortune 500'. Or do =
you believe ARIN et al. will be establishing price caps and establishing =
who among the various requesters for the same block deserves to get the =
SLS seller's blocks?
What a bunch of folks seem to have gotten their panties in a bunch about =
is the idea that without our Benevolent RIR Overlords, Enron-wannabes =
are going to go around and buy up all the unused IPv4 address space and =
make a killing selling it to the highest bidder. I'm afraid I haven't =
been able to get worked up about this: the only difference between the =
world with the BRO and without I can see is who gets the money (and this =
is ignoring the debate as to whether speculators can encourage bringing =
more addresses into play since their sitting on lost opportunity cost of =
they simply hoard IPv4 addresses). I find the whole discussion quite =
odd: laws of economics are pretty clear about situations with limited =
supply and increased demand and the reality is that ARIN is not a =
regulator and has essentially no enforcement mechanisms outside of =
contractual relationships. It is a 501(c)(6) consisting of 3865 =
members, of which a couple of hundred technical folks participate in =
policy definition processes that affect tens of millions of people, the =
vast majority of which have never heard of ARIN. As long as the =
policies ARIN defined by the technical folk don't affect folks with =
money/power in negative ways, everything is fine. That time is just =
about over. People really need to adjust.
> I do not think it would function better if it were "just a WHOIS =
database."
To try to bring this back to NANOG (instead of PPML-light), the issue is =
that since at least two alternative registries have apparently been =
established, how are network operators going to deal with the fact that =
the currently execrable "whois database" is almost certainly going to =
get worse?
Regards,
-drc
