Re: [ifwp] Re: new iana draft bylaws

[Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>]

On Fri, 7 Aug 1998, Karl Auerbach wrote:

> IANA delegated the privilege to allocate numbers to the RIRs.  IANA did
> not make a permanent transfer, only a revocable delegation.

IANA is not a corporate entity and has no means of revoking a delegation.
It is quite unlike ARIN, RIPE and APNIC which are corporate entities and
which do have the means of revoking a delegation in that the network
operators who are members of the regional IP registries have the actual
power to make IP addresses unusable on the global Internet. Note that I am
not suggesting that the RIRs would unilaterally take such action. I am
pointing out that the network operators who constitute the RIRs have the
technical ability, and thus the power, to take such action. 

IANA has no such powers. Nor will the new IANA have such powers unless the
network operators, in the form of the RIRs, agree to such powers.

> And it has been established law for hundreds of years that the ability to
> exercise a privilege, or to exclude others from exercising that privilege,
> is a property right.

Well, I happened to be chatting with one of ARIN's lawyers during a coffee
break at an ARIN meeting and while discussing the uncharted territories of
Internet law, I asked if IP addresses could be considered property. As I
recall, and I may have misunderstood, he said that he was not aware of any
caselaw dealing with the matter. I'm sure you understand that in the
absence of caselaw confirming some sort of property rights, we cannot
assume that IP addresses are a property.

> IANA has a substantial "good will" property right derived from the fact
> that people, ISPs, and others voluntarily elect to follow IANA's decisions
> and allocations.  In particular, those who offer packet routing services
> look to IANA, and IANA established practices, to indicate which addresses
> and routes to honor and which to ignore.

If the new IANA was a direct outgrowth of the current IANA then I would
agree that you may have something there. But there is a significant trend
in the IFWP discussions to creating a new entity from scratch and I don't
see how the new entity could inherit any of IANA's goodwill unless the
RIRs were willing to submit to that new entity.

> And the RIRs have no more intrinsic, irrevocable right to any of it than
> does NSI with regard to the root zone of the DNS.

You are absolutely right about that. The RIRs only enjoy the privilege of
allocating IP address space because the network operators feel that they
do a good job in carrying out that trust. Once again, with IP addresses
just as with domain names, we see that the real control flows up from the
grassroots. It would be wrong to attempt to create a new IANA that assumed
control was flowing in a top-down manner. In order to succeed the new IANA
must recognize that it is a confederation of confederations. The Councils
in the Postel proposal are a step in that direction although more work
needs to be done before we have a workable solution.

--
Michael Dillon                 -               Internet & ISP Consulting
Memra Communications Inc.      -               E-mail: michael@memra.com
Check the website for my Internet World articles -  http://www.memra.com