Publication of Sponsoring LIR for Independent Number Resources

This proposal intends to allow the RIPE NCC to identify and make public the sponsoring organisation of each independent number resource.

Summary of Proposal

This proposal intends to allow the RIPE NCC to identify and make public the sponsoring organisation of each independent number resource.

Policy Text

New policy text

[Following text will result in a new RIPE Policy Document “Publication of Sponsoring LIR for Independent Number Resources”, if the proposal reaches consensus.]

Abstract

Subsequent to the introduction of the “Contractual Requirements for Provider Independent Resource Holders in the RIPE NCC Service Region” policy, the RIPE NCC did not publicly identify the sponsoring organisation of each number resource.  This policy proposal requests that this information be published.

1.0 Introduction

The “Contractual Requirements for Provider Independent Resource Holders in the RIPE NCC Service Region” policy requires that there be a contractual link between the End User and a sponsoring organisation, which may be either a LIR or the RIPE NCC.

The RIPE NCC has historically not published the identity of the sponsoring organisation for each directly assigned number resource.  This is inconsistent with the goals of the Internet Registry System as described in the RIPE allocation and assignment policy documents.

2.0 Policy Text

The RIPE community requests that the RIPE NCC publish an identifying link between each independent Internet number resource in the RIPE database and the sponsoring organisation, where such a link exists.

3.0 Attribution

This document is developed by the RIPE community.

The following people actively contributed by making proposals through the RIPE Policy Development Process:

Nick Hilliard, David Freedman

Rationale

a. Arguments supporting the proposal

The RIPE resource allocation and assignment policy documents require that Internet number resources be registered “via a public registry documenting address space allocation and assignment” and notes that “this is necessary to ensure uniqueness and to provide information for Internet troubleshooting at all levels”.

This mechanism provides a simple means for End Users to identify with which sponsoring organisation they have a contractual link, in the case this information is unknown to the End User.

This policy simplifies the mechanism for verification and co-ordination between sponsoring organisations when an End User wishes to transfer resources from one sponsoring organisation to another.

Publishing this information provides an additional means for tackling abuse issues on the Internet.

b. Arguments opposing the proposal

This policy may reveal commercial relationships between parties which were not previously apparent, and which the parties may not be in favour of revealing.

Note: In order to provide additional information related to the proposal, details of an impact analysis carried out by the RIPE NCC are documented below. The projections presented in this analysis are based on existing data and should be viewed only as an indication of the possible impact that the policy might have if the proposal is accepted and implemented.

A. RIPE NCC's Understanding of the Proposed Policy

This policy proposal would require the RIPE NCC to publish the identity the sponsoring LIR for each independent number resource. If it is accepted, the proposal would make publicly visible the link between sponsoring LIRs and the organisations they have contracts with.

The RIPE NCC would also publish information about independent number resources that are used for the infrastructure of LIRs.

B. Impact of Policy on Registry and Addressing System

Address/Internet Number Resource Consumption:

After analysing the data that is currently available, the RIPE NCC does not anticipate that any significant impact will be caused if this proposal is implemented.

Fragmentation/Aggregation:

After analysing the data that is currently available, the RIPE NCC does not anticipate that any significant impact will be caused if this proposal is implemented.

C. Impact of Policy on RIPE NCC Operations/Services

Registration Services:

Based on the contracts already received from LIRs under related policies, the RIPE NCC will publish the link between independent number resources and their sponsoring LIR. The LIR is responsible for providing accurate and up-to-date information to the RIPE NCC.

By publishing that an administrative link is present between an LIR and an End User, the RIPE NCC will also be implicitly publishing where such a link has not yet been made or no longer exists. It will therefore become visible which resources do not have a sponsoring LIR.

The RIPE NCC is currently still contacting the End Users of resources issued before implementation of the policy “Contractual Requirements for Provider Independent Resource Holders in the RIPE NCC Service Region”. The latest numbers of remaining resources are available here.

During implementation of this policy, the RIPE NCC will contact those organisations acting as sponsoring LIRs to notify them of this change and allow them time to react appropriately, by reviewing their sponsoring LIR agreements and terminating any they do not want to be associated with (or even all of them).

Billing/Finance Department:

After analysing the data that is currently available, the RIPE NCC does not anticipate that any significant impact will be caused if this proposal is implemented.

RIPE Database:

There will be a new, optional, single attribute called "sponsoring-org:" added to the object types INETNUM, INET6NUM, AUT-NUM.

The value of this attribute will be a reference to an ORGANISATION object with "org-type: LIR".

This will only be added to those resources for which the RIPE NCC holds approved documents, or if the LIR has declared the resource to be used for their own infrastructure.

For INETNUM and INET6NUM it will also only be added if the "status:" has the value of "ASSIGNED-PI" or "ASSIGNED-ANYCAST".

If no documents are available, this attribute will not be added to the resource object.

The RIPE NCC will take an initial data list from its internal records and add the new attribute to appropriate objects based on this data list. It will then need to be part of a regular RIPE NCC process to maintain this data in the RIPE Database. This new attribute/value will need to be added or changed, subject to the conditions stated above, when:

• A new resource is assigned
• A resource moves to another sponsoring LIR, or a sponsoring LIR notifies the RIPE NCC that a contract has been cancelled
• A resource moves from a sponsoring LIR to the infrastructure of a LIR
• Documents are received for a resource where no documents were previously available

Business Application Department:

After analysing the data that is currently available, the amount of work necessary to technically implement the change is considered to be of low impact.

In order to make organisation IDs of LIRs more visible, the RIPE NCC updates the extended RIRstats file with the organisation ID of the legitimate holder for every published resource.

D. Legal Impact of Policy

In order to guarantee transparency, the RIPE NCC will have to update the RIPE NCC procedural document “Independent Internet Number Resources – Contractual Relationship Changes Between Sponsoring LIR and End User” in order to reflect this new policy requirement.