[address-policy-wg] 2007-08 Review Period extended until 9 July 2008 (Enabling Methods for Reallocation of IPv4 Resources)

On Jun 13, 2008, at 7:18 AM, <michael.dillon at bt.com> wrote:

>
>> Even though this will give the NCC a bit more work to do, I
>> do support this proposal. One of the main reasons being that
>> the allocations will remain to be properly registered and are
>> thus accountable.
>
> I disagree that this will make anyone more accountable. As long as
> addresses are in use on the Internet, tools such as traceroute make it
> possible to identify the source of traffic, and the organization which
> is actually using an IP address block. In fact, I am currently sorting
> out an issue with SAIX in South Africa announcing, and passing traffic
> for someone who is using one of our IP address ranges. The fact that  
> our
> address range is correctly registered in ARIN's database did not stop
> someone from using it on the Internet, and the fact that the user is  
> not
> in any RIR database, does not prevent us from solving the problem.
>
> In fact, I suspect that most companies don't even care to make the
> actual user of an IP address range accountable. If the next link in  
> the
> chain is accountable, i.e. the upstream of this non-accountable IP
> address user, then the problem can be quickly resolved.
>
> Therefore, accountability is not necessary in all cases. At the same
> time, RIPE can only affect accountability very indirectly with correct
> database entries. The history of the RIPE database and other RIR
> databases shows that they don't have a big impact on accountability  
> and
> they also do not have a great track record for accuracy. I just do not
> see a connection between greater (or lesser) accountability, and a  
> more
> accurate (or less accurate) RIPE database.
>
> --Michael Dillon

Hi Michael,

Does that suggest that accountability and accuracy would be improved  
if everyone had the same (presumably more accountable) integrated  
upstream provider / database maintainer?

TV