ARIN V Public Policy Meeting, Day 2 Notes - 4 April 2000 [Archived]

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Call to Order

Kim opened the meeting at 9:00 a.m. by recognizing the foosball tournament winners (and losers) from the previous evening, and making several announcements.

Raising Maximum Allocation to /13

Cathy Clements, Sr. IP Analyst, presented a proposal to increase ARIN’s maximum allocation from a /14 to /13 to provide the space needed by large ISPs that have been utilizing /14s in less than 3 months. This would benefit subscribers, reduce the workload of the RSG staff, and otherwise not affect ARIN’s policies or operations. A majority was in favor.

Criteria for New RIRs

The RIRs have submitted a draft proposal to the ASO AC outlining criteria for officially recognizing emerging registries such as LACNIC and AFRINIC. The existing RIRs indicated they will be available to provide training support to the new RIRs. To advance the process of formation and recognition, ARIN has sent public information from WHOIS to the proposed LACNIC and AFRINIC. It was pointed out that in the event a RIR does not perform, it is ICANN’s responsibility to determine if the RIR should no longer be recognized.

Separating Legacy Space

Shane Kerr, Sr. Software Engineer, spoke on the database separation project that the RIRs have undertaken, for which they’ve drafted a document. The legacy space that ARIN currently holds will be divided by region and placed with the proper RIR. The RIRs are currently pursuing how to delegate in-addr DNS information. To support in-addr maintenance, ARIN is looking into co-locating the service in California, Chicago, Denver or Houston, and No. Virginia. It was requested that those who know DNS should review this draft document.

Charging Fees to Legacy Holders

Kim introduced a proposal to charge maintenance fees for legacy networks, which ARIN has been maintaining free of charge from the time it began operations. Legal implications and resistance by some legacy holders have been considered, however, ARIN maintains the right and authority to implement this action. ARIN would be able to begin this process as soon as the records are separated by the RIRs.

This effort will improve the accuracy of database records and might also help to retrieve unused space. Kim agreed to Bill Darte’s suggestion of making a final attempt to locate space holders after one year has passed. It was pointed out that it is ARIN’s responsibility, and not ICANN’s, to follow up with space that is not being utilized.

RWHOIS Update

Shane spoke on the progress of RWHOIS and indicated that it is not without problems. He provided a sample schema of the fields ARIN will review in RWHOIS servers (see ftp://ftp.arin.net/pub/rwhois/arin-request-data.txt) .

Attendees indicated they prefer RWHOIS over SWIP provided it worked properly, and are in favor of improving RWHOIS, but until it is improved, they would like for SWIP to be updated. ARIN currently has plans to enhance the automation of SWIP. Meeting attendees were asked to review the SWIP template and provide comments. Also, a SWIP complaints role account will be initiated.

Updating RWHOIS would take an estimated 3 to 4 months for a software engineer to complete. Mark Kosters of NSI continues to put patches in RWHOIS, and will continue to develop it as time allows. He says a new licensing agreement is forthcoming, but it will not be open-source approved.

ARIN Database Redesign

Shane explained how consolidating data and automating our registration and billing processes will greatly improve efficiency. The new system will use SSL encryption and will support authorization and authentication, as well as audit trail features. It will facilitate e-commerce transactions under $500 (allocation fees cannot be paid by credit card) and will provide a single web-based interface. Whether large corporations will have access to their many divisions will be decided by the members. There was a general sentiment that the group wants ARIN to specify which POC names will be visible and which ones will not.

System Security

System security plays an important role in the new design. Authentication and Authorization will be tied to the POC and the system will direct which POC can be changed. POC roles will not be viewable in WHOIS. The authentication pros and cons of PGP, certificates, and SSL-based passwords were discussed among the group, and attendees were asked to subscribe to the Database Implementation Working Group mailing list for more detailed information.

APNIC Update

Gerard Ross, APNIC’s Technical Writer, presented an update of the Asian registry’s activities. He presented data from their annual report, IP and membership statistics, and described their projects that are underway.

RIPE NCC Update

João Luis Silva Damas, Head External Services at RIPE NCC, provided a brief status of RIPE NCC and announced the upcoming ASO meeting to be held in conjunction with RIPE NCC’s meeting in Budapest. This will be the first general assembly that the ASO AC will host.

LACNIC Update

German Valdez reported on the progress of LACNIC’s formation. The LACNIC creation agreement has the support of important stakeholders in the region, and an interim board has been established to accomplish specific goals. Three working groups are formed to focus on translating to English, reviewing draft bylaws, and determining the location of the registry, whether Brazil or Mexico. Several organizations from the Caribbean have already requested to join the RIR and a letter of support has been signed by 82 organizations from 11 countries. ARIN offered help in setting up precautions to ensure the continued operation of LACNIC and protection of its data/records. LACNIC is expected to begin operations in September or October but no date has been set.

ARIN Logo

Kim asked the members and attendees to think about the design of a new logo for ARIN. With the expected recognition of LACNIC, the logo should change since South America will no longer be in ARIN’s region.

ARIN’s Outreach Program

Kim described the support ARIN has historically provided to the community, and opened the floor for discussions and suggestions, which included:

• Hold training classes at commercial and professional (such as NANOG) organization’s locations
• Hire a consultant to conduct training
• Create documents that tell what ARIN does in non-technical terms (this could be addressed by CLEW)
• Provide unambiguous information about ARIN
• Use one IP allocation form for all customers with a description of ARIN included
• Start a mailing list specifically for ideas/suggestions/solutions
• Translate into French (ARIN is currently translating into Spanish)
• Attend conference in Argentina to train many ISPs
• Start an ambassador program, i.e., numerous ISP representatives would be certified to train others on ARIN’s procedures
• Advertise on ARIN’s web site that ARIN staff are available to train trade association and consortium members at their locations

Barry Skeenes, ARIN Technical Writer, was enlisted to draft a description of ARIN to be added to request templates. This description will be posted to the CLEW mailing list for review and comment.

Kim wrapped up the day by going over the next day’s Members Meeting agenda.

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