On Apr 21, 2009, at 3:19 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
Well... ARIN is structured with a bottom-up community driven policy
process. That has
served us well for many years, and, I think that changing it would
be a mistake. However,
in this case, that means that the following people are specifically
excluded from proposing
policy:
The BoT (other than via the emergency process)
ARIN Staff
Policy proposals must come from the community. Either at large, or,
from the ARIN AC
which is an elected subgroup of the community tasked with developing
good policy for
ARIN. The AC itself depends largely on community input for what kind
of policy the
community wants us to develop, and, at the end of the day, community
consensus is
required in order for a proposal to become policy.
It's served us so well that we are running out of IP space and no
effective way to migrate to the already existing replacement solution.
The argument that it's always been that way, just doesn't cut it. It's
the same with all these issues. If ARIN were to hire someone whose job
it was to avangelize a workable solution, I am sure you would see
individuals willing to come forth and support it and create a
consensus. And FYI, there is nothing saying that consensus is required
for a proposal to become policy, look at the US government, they make
policy every day without consensus. If the situation is as bad as it's
being made out to be, then ARIN MUST act in the best interest of the
community as a whole.
B) Again, while it might be the IETF's "job", shouldn't the group
trusted with the management of the IP space at least have a public
opinion about these solutions are designed. Ensuring that they are
designed is such a way to guarantee maximum adoption of v6 and thus
reducing the potential for depletion of v4 space.
The IETF specifically does not accept organizational input and
requires instead that
individuals participate. This is one of the great strengths, and,
also one of the great
weaknesses of the IETF. However, it means that even if ARIN could
develop a public
opinion (which would have to come from the ARIN community by some
process which
we don't really have as yet), this opinion wouldn't mean much in the
IETF's eyes.
Again, if ARIN were to put out a "best practices" guide, and promote
it as a way to push forward IPv6. Instead they are saying "not my
problem" and "the guys who are working on it, won't let us play with
them"
C) Are ARIN's books open for public inspection? If so, it might be
interesting for the group to see where all our money is going,
since it's obviously not going to outreach and solution planning.
Perhaps it is being spent in a reasonable manner, and the fees are
where they need to be to sustain the organizations reasonable
operations, but perhaps not.
I will leave this to the BoT to answer, but, I know that the
treasurer presents a report
at every members meeting which provides at least some high level
details. I believe
that as a non-profit corporation, a great deal of openness is
required for accountability
to ARIN members.
Why is travel such a large percentage of their expenses? If people
want to be on the board, they should pay for their own travel to the
meetings. This is a Not For Profit, not a corporation, big difference.
Mr Curran, given the response you've seen from the group, and in
particular the argument that most CEO's or Officers of firms will
simply sign off on what they IT staff tells them (as they have
little to no understanding of the situation), can you explain what
exactly you are hoping to achieve by heaping on yet an additional
requirement to the already over burdensome process of receiving an
IPv4 allocation?
I can't say what Mr. Curran expects, but, here's how I see it:
1. If an officer of the organization signs off, then, that means
that both the
organization and the officer personally can be held accountable for
any
fraud that is later uncovered. If the officer is an idiot, perhaps
he'll just
sign, but, most officers I have experience with don't do that. They
usually
engage in some level of verification before signing such a statement.
How do you figure, under what law is this enforceable? Most Officers
will simply say to the person asking them to sign it "Is this true"
and when they say yes, he'll sign it. The CEO of most corporation does
not have the time, experience or expertise to determine if his firm
truly needs additional IP Space.
2. Organizations which are submitting fraudulent requests may be less
willing to do that when someone has to make a signed attestation
under
penalty of perjury. Especially when that person has fiduciary
liability to
the organization as an officer.
Again, what law are they violating? How is this considered perjury?
3. There are lots of things people will do if they don't think there
are potential
consequences. A signed attestation by a corporate officer
dramatically
reduces the apparent lack of consequences to a fraudulent
application.
Sure, there will always be criminals and criminals may not be bothered
by this signed attestation process. However, having it does give the
ARIN
legal team a better shot at them as well.
Again how does signing an attestation = criminal liability? Maybe
civil liability, but certainly not criminal liability.
I am not a lawyer and these are just my own opinions.
Owen
