Re: Shaping the Future of ICP-2: Community Input Extended to December 2024

[Owen DeLong via NANOG]

On Nov 19, 2024, at 13:12, Noah <n...@neo.co.tz> wrote:  On Tue, 19 Nov 2024, 22:50 Owen DeLong, <o...@delong.com> wrote: The RIRs each have a geographic monopoly and at their creation, this is required by ICP-2 (the original). This has nothing to do with where you land on any of your subsequent questions. Are the European Union or African Union, geographic monopolies?  I don’t know enough about the structure of the African union to comment, but to the extent other territorial monopolies (the member nation states) have ceded sovereignty on specific topics to the EU, yes, the EU is a geographic monopoly.  The NRO cartel has agreed to specific territories served by each RIR, granting each a geographic monopoly. You write as if a couple of guys formed an organization and decided how the system must work. I didn’t specify quantity, but otherwise, your description isn’t far off from what happened.  FWIW, the RIRs (NRO) are an outcome of wider internet community engagents that lasted years if not decade for which you historically particpated in as a member of the said communities. Most of the rules of engagent were decided through wider consultations at policy debates and some by those elected by various internet communities. The community had input, but in the early days, all of the decisions were made by small numbers of people behind closed doors who were supposed to consider, but not necessarily follow said community input.  Do not confuse the RIR/NRO system with the pseudo-private enterprises operated by sole propriators who believe that they can change a system that has served the public so well for decades and continue to do so. I have no such illusions. However, I also don’t share your rose colored view of the current situation. Yes, the RIRs have mostly done a good job and 4 of them are operating similarly to what you describe (fortunately).  One is completely off the rails, has no legitimate board and no legitimate executive, continues to operate contrary to court orders, under the supposed leadership of a self-appointed former board member.  The fact that the other 4, the community, and the membership have no mechanism by which they can reign this behavior in is the primary source of the desire to change ICP-2 from a one and done document for creating RIRs to a document guiding the ongoing operation of RIRs and providing additional checks and balances to deal with rogue RIRs.  Because organizations served by RIRs are not constrained by those boundaries, many operate in more than one region and the rules get fuzzy, but in general, territorial exclusivity is long established.  And countries do have some embassies in different other countries. Yes and no. Technically, embassies are considered sovereign territory of the country represented and inviolable by the host country.  Your comment is orthogonal to the geographic monopoly of the RIRs.  I’m not saying this is good or bad. I see benefits to it, but I also see reasons it might be better to phase it out. In any case, it might be worth considering granting a certain right of a registrant to transfer the servicing of their registration to the RIR of their choosing.  Each region has its own rules of engagement. When  such registrant decides to play in a certain service region, they must comply with existing rules of the game in the said region. And what is to be done when the RIR chooses not to play by its own rules? Owen