[rpd] RPD Digest, Vol 135, Issue 58

[Owen DeLong]

> On Dec 21, 2017, at 01:03 , Lu Heng <h.lu at anytimechinese.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Owen
> 
> There are a few points I would like to address regarding your arguments, please see below:
> 
>  1.      Territorial exclusivity vs regional internet facilitator.
> 
> It has been a long debating subject whether RIR is a territorially exclusive governing body or a regional internet facilitator. So far, regional exclusive policy has not been passed in any of the five RIR, although it has been proposed in certain regions.

Not entirely true. While no region has stated that they will not allow their addresses to be used
out of region, All but RIPE are unwilling to issue addresses to organizations without at least some
network presence in region.

> I regard myself as a follower of Rob and the idea of “one internet”.

Meh… I consider myself a follower of Jon and I also like the idea of “one internet”, but that doesn’t mean that I oppose the ability for a region to set its own address policy. I think the current process works reasonably well and that RIPE has erred in this regard.

>  2.       Ownership, rights to use, Integer.
> 
> This is a very complicated issue. To make myself clear, I would like to split it into three different parts.
> 
> The first part is the ownership issue. Undeniably, there is a certain degree of consensus that number resource is a public resource and integer are publically available. However, no uniqueness is attached to any integer nor does any of them contain any value. This naturally makes it improper to call number 4 “a public resource”.

This was exactly my point (in part)

> A thing is regarded as a resource when we assume it has an owner.

Sure, but we need to be clear about what thing we are declaring ownership of. My point is that the ownership is not of the integer itself, but of the registration of the integer for uniqueness among the cooperating systems of IANA, RIRs and ISPs that participate.

> In this case, IANA is the owner – as people mostly agree that IANA owns all the numbers, as it is the one who assigns us the rights to use them.

Nope. This is a complete fallacy, no matter how many people buy into it. IANA has been given the authority to distribute unique blocks to RIRs on behalf of IETF according to policies set by the RIRs through the processes of the ASO AC (comprised of the NRO NC).

IANA owns nothing. The IANA is simply a recording secretary acting as agent for the IETF.

For example: IANA has no ability to make 4000::/3 allocations because the IETF has not yet delegated that to IANA as IPv6 unicast space.
The IANA has no ability to do anything with 240.0.0.0/4 either because IETF has not yet delegated that (and likely never will) to IANA.

> This links to the second part that I would like to discuss: rights to use. In fact, these rights assigned by IANA contain a market tradeable value, because:

There is no right to use conveyed in any IPv4 or IPv6 or ASN registration in the RIRs. You are free to use whatever integers you want on your network without needing any sort of permission from anyone. This is another common fallacy.

The only thing you get from IANA and/or the RIRs and the thing which has value is not a right to use, but a guarantee of uniqueness among the cooperating registries.

> The registration of integers forms the unique use of a particular network within a co-operating system registries (as you have pointed that out), and because such uniqueness in the registry is generally recognized, this creates a market value for the exclusive rights to modify those integers inside the system.

Yes, but it is the right to modify that registration which is the property, not the numbers themselves.

> This is the reason why a number four itself does not have any market value, but a number four in a center registry with a uniqueness agreed by all has one.

You are making my exact point here. The registration is the thing that has value, not the number. The registration is that which can be owned, not the number.

> It is true that IPs are public resources. However, this is not entirely the case when we consider the notion of “identifier” – in order to let the very definition for “identifier” to work, a unique right must be assigned to use them.

Nope… That never actually happens. All that you actually get and that which is valuable is a guarantee of uniqueness only within the cooperating systems. If someone chooses to cooperate, the RIRs, IANA, end user owning the registration, etc. have no legal basis on which to tell them that they cannot use any particular number even if it is registered to someone else. What can happen, however, if you use the number in a manner that is harmful to the generally recognized internet (conflicting route announcements) is that a court can find that to be what is known as “tortious interference”.

Short of that, if my use of numbers assigned to you (for example) doesn’t actually interfere with your use of those numbers on the internet, you’d be hard pressed to find any way to make me stop using them. Thus, you have no right of exclusive use.

> This unique right is what ISPs has on those number and the reason why multi-national co-operations spend hundreds millions dollars on them.

If that’s true, then those ISPs and multi-national corporations should find new legal counsel because such right doesn’t actually exist.

> To make things easier to understand, I put it in the following way:
> 
> 1. It is an identifier

	It _can_ be an identifier.

> 2. Identifiers need to be unique to be used by its very definition.

	Yes and no.

> 3. The unique rights to use the specific identifier in a center registry is a private right that has been assigned to ISPs.

	This is where you are completely mistaken. The registry doesn’t assign any right. The registry registers the identifier set for
	uniqueness to a particular recipient. The registry has no power to prevent someone else from using the same set of identifiers or
	an overlapping set of identifiers. The registry has no such right to assign.

> 3. These rights contain a market tradeable value because of its uniqueness.

	The unique registration among a (rather large) set of cooperating entities is valuable. Yes. However, it is not an exclusive
	right to use the numbers. It is an exclusive right to control the registration of the numbers. The registration has value.
	The numbers are ancillary to the registration.

> The critical point here is that although RIRs were created to assign these rights (as stated in the documents), they were not created to re-distribute or to own them. This is the core problem of the review policy proposal, as an RIR does not own any of the identifiers; it is simply made to assign them to end-users fairly.

This incorporates so many of your previous errors that it would be nearly impossible to untangle it.

> The biggest misunderstanding in the review policy is the idea that RIR can claim back these rights, as they are assumed to “own” them. However, from the above it is clearly that this is not the case, as these rights were designed to be private and unique from day one; RIR do not own any of them.

The RIR can revoke a registration for a variety of reasons. This can and has happened in multiple RIRs. So long as the RIR does it within the scope of their registration services agreement (or equivalent) and according to the policies set by their community, there is no problem with this.

Since the “rights” you describe don’t exist, you are correct that the RIR does not claim back those rights. They never existed and cannot thus be claimed back.

However, the RIR can revoke the registration and register those addresses to a different entity.

> An example for this is that despite how much space each RIR has, it cannot use any of them in their inventory.

Sure they can. I think every RIR has registered a certain amount of space to themselves for internal use.

>  On the other hand, ISP use the space from the moment they get them.

In some cases, but so do the RIRs in the case where they have issued the space to themselves for internal use.

ISPs also don’t use all of the space they receive. The delegate much of it to customers over time, operating a form of Local Internet Registry very much along the same lines as the registrations in the RIR and just as the IANA central registry issues the blocks to the RIRs. These are simply hierarchies of registration and the “ownership” of the registrations follows that hierarchy.

> In this sense, it is fair to view RIR as a mere distribution channel for the rights to use the identifiers, which do so according to the policies created by the community. As I mentioned above, these rights were never theirs in the very first place. Once distribution is done, these rights turn into private rights of each ISPs. Thus, an open market is needed (or a center redistribution hub). but what you can not have, is an open market and an center redistribution hub at same time--they are conflicting each other by definition.

Once again you are mistaking registrations and rights to control a registration record for rights to use the identifiers. Since the rights you are referring to are a work of fiction and do not actually exist, it is difficult to make a corrected version of your statement above. Too many compound errors.

> 3. Communist vs capitalist
> 
>  As one who live in one of the biggest communist countries, my understanding for the problem with "communist" is rather simple. When you have a center government that controls all the resources in a society, dictatorship and corruption naturally follow up as a result. Because the government owns everything, private enterprises and properties do not exist. The society has only one voice – the government’s voice. This absolute authority of the government results in monarchy and Fascism(so those are the results of communist rather than the reason)
> 
> Communist ideology emphasizes the idea that government ownership is equal to “people owning everything” which, I suspect, is the reason why it gets popular in the first place. However, history proofs that the above is terribly wrong. Under communist governance, the government is the only state holder and interested party in the game. It thus only represents the interest of those parts of it instead of the people.
> 
> This is similar to the logic when we think that by allowing AFRINIC to own all the numbers, it is the same with African people owning them. History already told us this is not the case – ultimately only the interests of certain parties are represented instead of that of the people.
> 
>  On the other hand, free economy and free enterprises represent a diversified interest amounted to many smaller stakeholders, because every party owns fiction of the resources. In this case, everyone has his or her own voice (albeit how small it is) in the society. In other words, it represents universal interest. This is supported by data – the biggest AFRINIC member owns 5% or less of AFRINIC total managed resources. 

Again, this entire argument is centered around the idea of a “right to use” vs. a “right to control the unique registration of”.

The former is fictitious while the latter is reality.

Owen

> 
> 
> 
> On 12 December 2017 at 02:39, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com <mailto:owen at delong.com>> wrote:
> 
>> On Dec 9, 2017, at 15:53 , Lu Heng <h.lu at anytimechinese.com <mailto:h.lu at anytimechinese.com>> wrote:
>> 
>>  Hi
>> 
>> 1. All IPs belong to IANA
> 
> No, this is simply not true and reflects a gross misunderstanding of the structure.
> 
> IPs are integers. One simply cannot own an integer. Try it out for size to see just how ridiculous it would be. Imagine telling all of your friends that you own “four” and that they need your permission to use it.
> 
> What we are talking about when we talk about “owning” IPs is actually not ownership at all (or at least not tangible ownership of integers). It’s registration of integers for the unique use of a particular network within a cooperating system of registries. That system of registries is made up of IANA (operated by ICANN currently under the IANA functions contract on behalf of the empowered community) and 5 regional internet registries. The IANA performs its registry related duties (namely distributing IPv4 addresses, IPv6 addresses, and Autonomous System Numbers) according to global policies developed by the Global PDP (which includes passing identical policy proposals through the PDP of each of the existing RIRs (currently 5) followed by ratification by the ASO AC/NRO NC and then the ICANN Board.
> 
> There is precedent for the ownership and transfer of some of these registrations.
> 
> 
>> 2.African internet community is not a virtual entity, for it does not own anything. It is simply a group of people who are interested in the region’s internet.
> 
> I think you meant “is a virtual entity”.
> 
>> 3. RIR was created to facilitate local internet development, instead of a territorial exclusive governing body—at least that was Rob—founder of the system believes. 
> 
> Actually, territorial exclusivity is one of the principles defined in ICP-2, so while there is some variability to what that should mean, there is at least some intent towards territorial exclusivity enshrined in the documents under which AfriNIC was created.
> 
> 
> 
>> 4. On the contrary to what many believe, the resource assigned to AFRINIC was not given to Africa. In fact, those resources still belong to IANA--just like any other RIR's resource.
> 
> No. This really isn’t true. Once a resource is delegated from IANA to an RIR, the only way it comes back to IANA is if the RIR chooses to return it or if the RIR issues it to someone who chooses to return it to IANA.
> 
>> 5. While IP remains a public resource,  the usage rights of IP resource is a private right. At today's market, those rights worth millions.
> 
> This is an interesting way to characterize things. Let’s say that I (and the RIR) agree that I have the rights to 192.159.10.0/24 <http://192.159.10.0/24>. What legal barrier is there that prevents you from using that address range on your network?
> 
> At least in most jurisdictions, the answer is “None, so long as I don’t engage in tortious interference.”
> 
> Even in a case of tortious interference, it’s a somewhat grey area.
> 
> The reality is that for all practical purposes, this works on the basis of cooperation. The internet works because ISPs cooperate about number uniqueness and hijacking of numbers is generally shut down rather promptly by ISPs in most cases.
> 
>> 6. While market economy might not be the best solution, it is the only solution we know that works as centre planning and redistribution of resource(the basic ideology of communism) do not work, hundreds of millions of lives which lost in the 20th century proves this.
> 
> I’m not sure you can blame all of that loss of life on the differences between capitalism and communism. Rather I think it’s more about the difference between facism (which usually accompanied socialism) and democracy or at least benevolent monarchy (universally available wherever capitalism has flourished).
> 
>> 7. Voting is rejected in the first sentence of RFC7282, https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7282 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7282> .  Thus, "it would be necessary to resort to the vote" will never happen in the current process.
> 
> Nor should it. Voting is a sure path to tyranny. Whether it be the tyranny of the majority over a minority as is the more common case or the tyranny of those best able to manipulate the process (as is often the case in western elections and parliamentary bodies).
> 
>> 8. And if you look at the issue realistically, the real minority here might be those non-profit organizations and academics that supports the policy, both in terms of the number of people and the amount of resources held. I believe those ISP are way out number NGOs in this contest by far, just they did't pay as much as attention to the process as some of the NGO do. I would rather call them "silence majority".
>> 
>> 9. Just to stress again, since we do not apply any soft landing space, therefore me and my cooperation have no views on this soft landing policy, our only stand here is to correct the policy development process in which is currently broken. 
> 
> Well… That’s not entirely true unless you are also saying that your organization has no plans or desire to obtain additional space of any form other than through transfers. Since the proposed soft landing bis policy would curtail many future registrations.
> 
>> And if I may add, the RIR system, both the book keeper ideology as well as consensus-based decision making, is a brilliant idea that protects the system by far, the more I think about it, the more I appreciate it. 
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> Owen
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> --
> Kind regards.
> Lu
> 

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