[members-discuss] [ncc-announce] [news] RIPE NCC Members and Multiple LIR Accounts - Please Discuss

We're just discussing symptoms of the problem though....the shortage of IP4 addresses, which is all these "abusers" are trying to find a way around.

As MD of a relatively new ISP (10 years old) we see many established players happily sitting on very large (and often largely unused) subnets. If IPV4 space not used was given back and reallocated (rather than hoarded as a competitive advantage) you wouldn't see folk trying to work around the rules like they do. 

Better still, let's get IPV6 in wider use and then we can all get on with more useful things.

-----Original Message-----
From: members-discuss [mailto:members-discuss-bounces at ripe.net] On Behalf Of Tomasz Slaski SKONET
Sent: 14 February 2016 15:54
To: members-discuss at ripe.net
Subject: Re: [members-discuss] [ncc-announce] [news] RIPE NCC Members and Multiple LIR Accounts - Please Discuss

W dniu 2016-02-11 o 11:56, Nigel Titley pisze:
> [...]
>
> ACTION REQUIRED:
> The Board asks the membership to provide their opinion on and discuss 
> the following points:
>
> 1. Is the activity of members opening additional LIR accounts a 
> problem that must be prevented?

It is obviously clear as the Sun is, that people open additional LIR accounts only to get another /22. The purposes are going mainly two ways:
1. the people need IPv4 for their own usage (hosters, cloud or vpn suppliers, ISP's - but they have more solutions) 2. for the speculative (ab)use. One of speculative abuses is following
proceeding:  - open the LIR, get /22, rent it for spammers (virgin addresses are expensive) after the IPs fall into the black lists, withdraw them from BGP and silently wait two years to sell the IP's - meanwhile, the addresses are purified from black lists and can be sold, and the LIR gets closed.

The first of the ways I'm willing to accept - the prices on the "free market" (quotes purposeful) are much higher.
The second is not fair to the other members of the RIPE NCC and should not take place - this practice is driving the black market and making speculative prices. In this case the 2-year transfer ban does not help anyway - with this type of activity it is not an obstacle.

So I'm going to a conclusion, that either:

a) it should not be prevented opening additional LIR, but limit "the openings" for one piece in 24(?) months. Additionally the resources received this way should be excluded from the transfer to another "foreign" LIR with significantly long time. These resources could be merged only with its own "primary" LIR after one year, but after that they can not be transferred out for at least 5 years. This should be enough to discourage speculation.

or
b) since the opening of the next LIR within one person or entity
(organization) is creating a fiction - (see above) I postulate to go new
way: one entity one LIR as principle. All additional LIRs opened by the same entity should be administratively merged info one account. Fees for this should be an annual cost of maintaining of each LIR. After that the resources should be locked for 5 years. After this cleanup let's introduce the fee for "new LIR resources" equal to the yearly cost of opening and maintenance of the new LIR and hold the lock the transfer for 5 years - this is in fact coming back to the concept of allocation a additionally /22 not often than 24 months for a fee equal to the annual cost of LIR.

I think, that option b) will be more transparent. Otherwise, we risk a rash of new LIRs, who are not really "new entrants" but only a pretext to meet the needs of current users or drive the abusers.

Best regards


--
Tomasz Śląski


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