[ncc-services-wg] Destruction of trust

Dear colleagues,

In Phase 3 of its legacy space project, the RIPE NCC is sending emails 
to contact legacy address space holders who are not RIPE NCC members and 
who hold a /16 or more.

In the emails we are sending, all three options, including the option to 
register legacy address space with a sponsoring LIR, are presented to 
the organisations. However, in the case of contact with three 
organisations, an email was mistakenly sent that did not mention the 
option to use a sponsoring LIR.

We regret this mistake and apologise sincerely for the confusion and any 
distress this might have caused.

We are contacting the organisations concerned to ensure that the correct 
message is delivered and that they are aware of all options available to 
them.

The RIPE NCC understands that "freezing" registry entries would be 
counterproductive and would not help its goal of ensuring registry 
correctness. The RIPE NCC has no intention of freezing registry entries 
for legacy resource holders.

Also, the RIPE NCC would like to assure legacy address space holders 
that it has no intention of withdrawing reverse DNS services for legacy 
address space holders.

The certification of address space, however, is available only to RIPE 
NCC members.

Thank you for raising the issue and for giving us the opportunity to 
clarify these matters. As Marcus has pointed out, the information 
concerning the project is available on our legacy webpages:
http://www.ripe.net/lir-services/resource-management/legacy-space

We will update the documentation concerning the project in the coming 
days to accurately reflect the situation.

Again, we apologise for the error and ask that you contact us at 
<legacy at ripe.net> if you have any questions or concerns. Or let us know 
via discussion on the list.

Best regards,

Andrew de la Haye
Chief Operations Officer
RIPE NCC

On 7/19/12 4:11 PM, Sander Steffann wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Giving some background information related to address policy:
>
>> If I've understood correctly, both option a) and b) above involve in
>> effect abolishment of historical grants and contractual submission
>> to all current and future RIR address policies and procedures which
>> are deemed to be relevant, with, I'm sure, the RIPE NCC interpreting
>> what is relevant.  No grandfather clauses, acknowledgement of
>> historical rights or explicit limitations anywhere in sight, and no
>> option to amend the template contract imposed by the RIPE NCC.
>
> The template is defined in RIPE-452:
>
>> ---
>> The details of any such contracts are outside the scope of this document.  However, at the minimum, all contracts should include:
>>
>> • Notice that the LIR is responsible for liaising with the resource holder to keep registration records up-to-date
>> • Notice that the resource holder is obliged to provide up-to-date registration data to the LIR and that some or all of this registration data will be published in the RIPE WHOIS Database
>> • Notice that none of the provider independent resources may be sub-assigned to a third party
>> • Notice that the resource holder is obliged to pay an annual fee to the LIR for the resources
>> • A clear statement that the resources will return by default to the RIPE NCC if
>> 	• The resource holder cannot be contacted
>> 	• The annual fee to the LIR is not paid
>> • A clear statement that the use of resources is subject to RIPE policies as published on the RIPE web site and which may be amended from time to time
>> ---
>
> The first two requirements are what is important according to the activity plan ("The goal of these activities will be to bring ERX and legacy space registration records up to the same standards of accuracy as address space distributed by the RIPE NCC since 1992."), and I don't think anybody objects to that.
>
> The next point about sub-assignments is a problem. Current legacy holders don't have any restrictions on what they can or can not do with their address space. This would suddenly limit what legacy holders are allowed to do, and possibly even make their existing network setup break the contract.
>
> The next two points about paying the bills and the addresses returning to the RIPE NCC if the bills are not paid also change the rights of the legacy holder. When they don't sign the contract their records in the database are frozen and the RIPE NCC "cannot guarantee the continuation of reverse DNS". If they sign the contract and then not pay the bill they lose all rights to the address space....
>
> The last point is the most obvious problem for legacy holders. Now the legacy holder is subject to no policy at all, and after signing such a contract they are suddenly subject to all current and future RIPE policies. I fully understand that legacy holders don't want to sign such a contract.
>
> But more importantly: RIPE-452 is a result of policy proposal 2007-01, and that proposal explicitly excluded ERX resource holders from being required to sign such a contract. Quoting from 2007-01 (http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2007-01/draft): "This proposal does not cover number resources marked in the RIPE database as Early Registration (ERX) or NOT-SET.  It also does not cover number resources listed in the RIPE database which were assigned by InterNIC or assigned or allocated by other Regional Internet Registries."
>
> So, following the acceptance of 2007-01 by the community: if the RIPE NCC requires legacy holders to sign such a contract (contract with sponsoring LIR) they are doing something which directly contradicts an accepted RIPE policy... If any legacy holder already signed such a contract I strongly feel that they should either be given the option to void the contract, or the contract should be declared void automatically.
>
> - Sander
>
>