Thus spake "Iljitsch van Beijnum" <iljitsch@xxxxxxxxx>
On 20-sep-2007, at 18:33, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
ARIN's counsel has told ARIN that it is unclear if they have legal
standing to revoke legacy assignments.
First of all, litigation isn't the only way to get something done, and
second, do don't know that until you try.
If you try to revoke someone's /8 or /16, you can bet that they're going to
sue you.
We did see 46/8 come back earlier this year, but unless I'm
mistaken, that was the first legacy /8 to be returned this century.
Return is different than revocation. ARIN is working on policy changes that
would encourage/incent voluntary return, as well as community outreach.
And, for the record, there are over 50,000 of them, not less than
50.
Clarification: 31,386 in ARIN's region. I haven't seen stats for the other
RIRs.
50000 organizations holding nearly 0.5% of the IPv4 space each?
I'm impressed! With that kind of address compression technology
we don't need IPv6 after all.
I'm sure you're aware that different size assignments were made to different
organizations.
Also, projections show that even if we reclaimed _every_
legacy assignment (many of which are still in use and even
justified under current policy), it would only delay exhaustion
six months to a year; it is felt that doing so is not generally worth
the effort and would certainly cost an absurd amount in legal
fees, and the litigation is likely to last beyond the exhaustion
date anyways (with no solid guess as to who would win in the
end).
I mostly agree with that, but a few years ago it looked like reclaiming,
say, half of the legacy /8s would buy us 2 - 5 extra years of IPv4
lifetime and there was enough time to do it at that point.
Even if true, that point is past. Based on current projections, it is
unlikely we'd be able to recover _any_ /8s before exhaustion hits due to the
protracted litigation that would ensue, and even if we did manage to get
some of them back (which isn't guaranteed, and would cost millions of
dollars in any case), it wouldn't have a material effect. We're going to
run out in a few years no matter what we do, the DFZ is going to explode
because big ISPs will be getting e.g. hundreds of /20s instead of a single
/12 for each request, and IPv6 still won't be deployed and usable in any
meaningful way unless we make more progress in the next two years than we
have in the last ten.
Same thing for repurposing 240/4, by the way.
Decade problem. Come back and discuss that when Windows recognizes that
block as normal unicast addresses by default.
The situation is different with v6 because all PI assignments
are subject to a contract that allows ARIN to revoke them at
any time with a policy change. If a viable alternative emerged,
ARIN could stop making new PI assignments, deprecate the
existing ones, and drop them after a few years' transition
period.
I don't believe that for one second. Maybe the RIRs have
contracts with all new PI holders, but that doesn't automatically
give ARIN the authority to reclaim address space after a policy
change.
Again, I don't know about all RIRs, but that is _explicitly called out_ in
ARIN's Registration Services Agreement and AFAIK has been since day one.
That, in fact, is one of the many reasons that the legacy holders do not
want to join the RIRs: they believe that their addresses can't be revoked
as-is but they could be if they signed an RSA.
I don't know of a precedent of any RIR EVER reclaiming ANY
address space without the cooperation of the holder, despite
the holder not complying with policies.
ARIN does so today on a regular basis for certain reasons. There is a
proposal that would grant them more policy authority to do so in more cases.
The language enabling such policy is in the RSA.
As a non-lawyer, I would judge the chances in court for
reclaiming IPv4 /8s higher than those for reclaiming IPv6 PI
space: in the first case, it's the benefit the continued operation
of the IPv4 internet, in the latter case, it's going to look highly
arbitrary.
I'd suggest you review the comments by ARIN's counsel at the last meeting
WRT revoking legacy assignments. It's more complicated than it appears at
first glance, particularly to someone not used to our legal system.
S
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking
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