Subject: Re: Request To Advance : "Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses"

From: Alain Durand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 23:19:43 -0800

On Feb 20, 2004, at 12:17 PM, Tony Hain wrote:

> Alain,
>
> The current document does not enforce a business model (earlier 
> versions
> did), but does set technical constraints.

I disagree. There are no technical constraints that mandates that the 
allocations
have to be permanent. As such, I believe it is up to the entity in 
charge of the allocation to decide
to give permanent allocations or charge recurrent fees, not the IETF.

> Personally I don't think it is
> possible to 'Provide mechanisms that prevent hoarding', so the 
> requirement
> 'without any procedure for de-allocation' creates a problem once 
> hoarding
> has been detected. I do not object to the current document as this 
> specific
> issue will be resolved by an update once the system is in operation and
> practical experience exposes that flaw.

Permanent, irrevocable allocations of chunks of finite address space
are, IMHO, not very wise. But again, this is address assignment policy, 
not IETF business.

> Recommending against all-zero's is not only a waste of time, it 
> specifically
> directs people to the thing you are trying to avoid. There is nothing 
> that a
> document can do to prevent a consultant from configuring all of his
> customers with the same prefix. He can run [RANDOM] once and use that
> everywhere, yet is in full compliance with the document. Even more of a
> problem, an equipment manufacturer could run [RANDOM] once and burn 
> that
> value into every piece of equipment they ship. The best a document can 
> do is
> highlight the issues raised by duplicate assignments, and provide a
> mechanism which solves them if used as directed.

This is exactly what I'm asking for. I like TIm Chown suggestion few 
days ago.

> As much as some people want
> to, it is not the IETF's job to legislate operational behavior. The 
> language
> in this document is appropriate and it should be published.

No it is not, as there are known issues and it is the wg duty to at 
least mention them.

	- Alain.

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From: Dan Lanciani <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 14:40:43 -0500 (EST)

Bill Manning <[email-masked]> wrote:

|% Bill Manning <[email-masked]> wrote:
|% 
|% | be prepared to defend yourself in court(s) in any number of
|% | jurisdictions.
|% 
|% Against whom exactly would he be defending?  Presumably the litigation would
|% be initiated by someone who had a financial stake in the matter.  Are you
|% acknowledging that the current address rental model exists for profit rather
|% than as a solution to the technical problem of address & routing table slot
|% consumption?
|
|	I am not impuning anything wrt routing table issues.

Your original comments suggested (at least to me) that you believed that
someone would have a stake in challenging the rent-free nature of the
allocations itself; however, your hypothetical concerns a vanilla dispute
over a particular allocation.

|	Positing a US based example...  GE uses  FD00:42::
|	Ford uses FD00:42:: - the prefixes become entrenched
|	in their respective corporate cultures.  A tiff breaks out
|	and they go to court and cite the IESG & the then current 

(I assume you are using "cite" to mean "make a claim against."  Obviously if
the citation is just a reference then the IESG has nothing to defend against.)

|	WG chairs for the creation of address blocks as property.

The problem here is that it isn't at all clear how the rent-free nature of the
allocation was causal of the (presumably) unintentional prefix duplication.  The
litigants could certainly complain that the IESG had failed to take sufficient
steps to insure duplicate-free allocations, but then they could do that in the
rental scenario as well.  In fact, they might have a stronger case if they were
paying rent since they might expect to get something for their money.  Moreover,
given that allocations in the FD00::/8 prefix are not guaranteed to be unique
in the first place, the property right created is at most a non-exclusive one.
This (along with the clearly available FC00::/8 alternative) would seem to make
their complaint pretty shaky.

Finally, the hypothetical as stated is itself a little odd because the litigants
would be contesting the creation of the very property right which they seek to
enforce (or even to expand).  Granted the arguments aren't completely mutually
exclusive, but would anyone really risk undermining their own case just to pull
in the IESG and chairs as co-defendants?  What kind of remedy could they seek
from the IESG?  It's not like it or the chairs could wave a magic wand and make
the conflict go away.  Any monetary damages GE or Ford might extract would be
insignificant to those companies--surely not worth the bad PR.

I really think you are attempting to find a problem where none exists.  On
the flip side, note that a rental model is hardly proof against legal troubles:
just look at the constant issues surrounding domain names.

|	this is -NOT- how the current address delegation model works.

You and other opponents of the current proposal keep stating this as if it
were a justification for forcing the address rental model on non-routables.
The routable address delegation model exists for (allegedly) technical reasons
that are not applicable to non-routables.

Year after year proposals for routable PI space have been met with hand-waving
"technical" arguments about something-or-other growing exponentially in
something-or-other-else.  The current proposal accomplishes (if nothing else)
a distillation of the PI argument to its purest form, free from technobabble.
We seem to be left with dire legal warnings and the old standby: ``it has to be
that way because something else is that way.''  I find this very educational.

|% | You should check w/ the RIRs on their role/position
|% | wrt legal precident on address/prefix ownership.
|% 
|% Umm, wouldn't they (at least some of them) be a bit biased since it is
|% additional revenue that they might want for themselves?
|
|	what revenue?

The revenue from renting the addresses that would be available at no cost
under the current proposal.

|% | You should
|% | have the ISOC/IETF legal team review the creation of property rights
|% | by the WG chairs and the IESG.
|% 
|% How do these allocations create property rights any more than the original
|% IPv4 allocations used before the rental model was introduced?
|
|	the early delegations have very nebulous documentation (mostly)
|	as to the terms and conditions under which they were delegated.

It was fairly clear at the time that the allocations were permanent.  If you
look at the history of hierarchical allocation and CIDR you will find the
original promise that that _temporary_ hack would not deprive owners of their
address portability.  Yes, you were going to get your addresses from your
current provider initially, but you would still be able to take them with
you when you moved because they were _your_ addresses.  Of course the cynical
among us didn't believe that promise for a minute, but the fact that it was
used to sell folks on the scheme says something.

|	That is not the case here.

So is it really just the "level" of permanence that is at issue here?  What if
we said that the addresses are delegated to end users in just the same way that
they are delegated to current "topmost" holders, that there will never be a
recurring cost (monetary or other) to the end user, but that the addresses can
be revoked en masse in conjunction with (and only in conjunction with) a similar
revocation of the delegations to the other holders, should there be a technical
reason for so doing?  This might provide a solution that is permanent enough for
many end users while creating no property rights beyond those already enjoyed
by existing address holders.  The requirement for en masse revocation avoids
the need to keep track of individual allocations.

|% | Its not going to be easy and its
|% | not clear the effort justifies the exposure, at least to me.
|% 
|% It is true that these days it is possible to cook up a legal storm about
|% almost anything.  What is the true reason for doing so in this case?
|
|	The IETF is making a fundamental change in address delegation
|	policy

No, it is simply _not_ propagating a special-case policy to a new class of
address space for which that special-case policy is not appropriate.

|w/o consultation with the existing, operational groups
|	who manage address delegations.

Why exactly should those groups have a say in the matter?  After all, if
they have no property rights in the revenue streams they derive from address
rentals then surely the IETF is not obligated to preserve/extend those
(non) rights.

|% | If you do this, I will have to rethink my use of IPv6 as tainted
|% | goods.
|% 
|% I think a lot of folks will rethink their use of IPv6 if they can't get
|% permanent address space.
|
|	No space delegations are permanent.

I await the revocation of net 10...

|% | The IETF should stick to -PROTOCOL- development, not create
|% | property rights to be fought over in courts.
|% 
|% But the IETF has already (at least indirectly) created property rights--and
|% very valuable ones--for the registries and ISPs who rent addresses.  A rental
|% property is still a property.  Your complaint seems to be with property rights
|% for end users, not with property rights in general.
|
|	That was not the IETF.

The IETF creates the hierarchical allocation model that in turn enables the
address rental business with its associated property rights.

|That was governments and operators.
|	The IAB concured with these groups in establishing RIRs.
|	
|	And if you will take the time to review the legal history,
|	you will note that the RIRs do not claim ownership.

Obviously there are different levels of "ownership."  Regardless of what
RIRs may claim, they do by their actions assert various property rights
in the address blocks they manage.  The right to rent an object (abstract
or tangible) and retain the revenue so generated is a property right.

|In fact
|	US legal precident (and in other venues as well) indicates
|	that address delegations are -NOT- property/assets.

Certainly RIRs have argued successfully that delegations in the hands of
end users are not property.  Yet at the same time those registries reserve
to themselves some additional rights (e.g., the right of transfer), thus
suggesting that they hold the addresses with a higher level of ownership
than end users.

Again, these policies and structures were created--and the cases argued--on
the grounds that such measures were necessary to conserve address space and to
allocate that address space in such a way that it would aggregate for routing
purposes.  Those considerations do not apply to the new address space under
discussion.  The address MLM juggernaut that exists as a side effect of the
(alleged) requirements for _routable_ address space does not justify its own
perpetuation in new areas where those requirements do not exist.

|RIRs
|	are custodians.

As I suggested above, what if we allow end users to act as custodians at
a level parallel to RIRs, rather than at a subservient level?

				Dan Lanciani
				ddl@danlan.*com