ARIN V Public Policy Meeting Minutes - Calgary, Alberta, Canada [Archived]

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Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. MDT followed by a welcome by John Curran, Chairman, ARIN Board of Trustees. The meeting was well attended by a record number of enthusiastic members and other interested parties, many here for the first time. Kim offered a special thank you to Shaw for their support and sponsorship.

Adoption of the Agenda

Kim Hubbard, ARIN President, asked for comments and changes to the agenda. There being none, the agenda was adopted.

Announcement of President’s Resignation

Kim introduced the ARIN Board members in attendance, and then announced her resignation as ARIN President, to be effective mid-June. An executive search firm has been contracted to find a suitable replacement. Kim encouraged everyone to stay actively involved in the industry, and John responded by recognizing Kim’s accomplishments.

Registration Services Update

Richard Jimmerson, Registration Services Manager, provided statistics showing a marked increase in RSG activities. ARIN’s membership had reached a total of 1001. An increase in number of SWIP templates processed was due in part to some organizations switching from RWHOIS to SWIP. RIPE NCC and APNIC indicated they have issued eleven and six IPv6 /35s respectively.

Engineering Activities

Shane Kerr, Sr. Software Engineer, provided an overview of Engineering activities and introduction of the department’s new personnel. Statistics can be viewed in the presentation materials.

ASO AC Activities

Presentation

Cathy Wittbrodt, ARIN AC and ASO AC member, provided a report of AC activities and announced an open call for nominations to fill an upcoming vacant seat on the ICANN Board. Cathy touched on ASO functions and results from recent meetings and conference calls. Meeting attendees discussed concerns regarding the difficulty in gathering a quorum of the AC at its meetings and teleconference calls.

There was majority support for the RIRs to fund ASO AC travel expenses, an issue which will be raised at the Budapest meeting. Attendees suggested that ARIN fund travel for its ASO AC members, but only if funding is not provided by the respective member’s organization. Kim agreed to look at creating a budget. She also indicated that we need to move forward on approving the ASO AC’s policy review and approval process. She encouraged all to attend ICANN meetings whenever possible, and IP-related companies to participate more.

ASO AC Elections

Barbara Roseman explained the proposed ASO AC member election process. Each RIR selects three AC members, and when other RIRs such as LACNIC and AFRINIC are officially recognized, an additional three will be added from each of them.

The group voiced several concerns: everyone should have equal opportunity to vote, (not just ARIN members), the process should be open and transparent, the election must be held fairly without undue influence by special-interest groups, geographical considerations should be taken into account, and security issues for an open online voting process should be addressed. A majority was in favor of adopting the proposed process, but the group was divided on the issue of on-line voting.

Attendees voted to hold a special election if a seat becomes vacant during the first 6 months of the term, and to wait until the next October PPM meeting if a vacancy occurred thereafter. ARIN will coordinate with APNIC and RIPE to determine the beginning of terms, whether January 1 or earlier.

ICANN Overview

Presentation

Ken Fockler provided background information on the ICANN, described its remaining transition tasks, and covered other topics such as: the election of five directors by the At Large Members before November, the ICANN budget for 2000-2001, and the active search for a new CEO.

ICANN/U.S. Government Contract

Background Info

Kim spoke about the Contract Between ICANN and the USG for Performance of the IANA Function, and indicated that its negotiations and signing were both a surprise to the RIRs, who are concerned that it was not included as part of the open process, nor did it include the RIRs or the ASO AC. At the time the contract was moving forward, the AC was reviewing a proposal submitted by the RIRs which outlined the scope of ICANN’s IP designation responsibilities.

Request for ICANN’s Reconsideration

Kim summarized a Request for Reconsideration that the RIRs formally submitted to the ASO AC wherein they asked for clarification of “globally specified applications,” a term used in the contract, and expressed other concerns. According to Ken, the ICANN review process involves ICANN’s CFO and Senior Adviser for Policy, who provides a summary of the proposal to a Reconsideration Committee, which makes a recommendation to the Board. Neither the committee nor the Board has yet to see the summary of the Request for Reconsideration letter. Questions asked include: Is there a time limit wherein ICANN must respond to requests? Does the Board understand the request?

Kim suggested that the RIRs and ICANN Board members and staff get together to ensure that requests from RIRs reach the Board and are not disapproved at the initial request. It was pointed out that if a conflict arose with ICANN, ARIN is first and foremost bound to adhere to its bylaws.

Proposal for Delegation of IPs by ICANN

Background Info

A proposal describing the delegation responsibility of ICANN was submitted jointly by the RIRs in response to the ICANN having allocated themselves a /20. Whether ICANN should have this authority was discussed. The general sentiment revealed that ICANN could step in only in the case of an operational emergency, but that this language must be clarified in the contract. It was suggested that an appeals process should be developed. Kim added that currently one can make an appeal to IANA if a registry does not follow its guidelines, but that an appeal cannot be made regarding the guidelines themselves.

Ad Hoc Group

Presentation

Raimundo Becca, ASO AC member, talked about ICANN’s new Ad Hoc Group, which is designed to identify key technology, commercial, and economic drivers that will affect addressing. The Ad Hoc Group will work through a Public Comment Forum on ICANN’s web site. An Editorial Group, which includes representatives from the IETF, RIRs, Address Council, ISP trade associations, and telecommunications operators, will maintain the Forum. The Editorial Group is not a decision-making body. Raimundo also described a proposal which outlines several tasks that relate to identification of future trends that may impact IP numbering. An approach to this proposal is yet to be decided.

Using HTTP 1.1

Richard Jimmerson opened a discussion about whether to make web-hosting allocations using HTTP 1.1 mandatory, what are its limitations, and what are the limits of SSL. According to Richard, many organizations appear to be using it successfully. There may be some concern among organizations that they would not be able to justify space since 1.1 requires fewer IPs. A majority was in favor of grandfathering web-hosting allocations and providing for some exceptions. It was suggested to develop clear and concise documentation.

Privacy of xDSL Users

Reassignment information on residential users of xDSL has generated concern among customers and ISPs that personal information is viewable in ARIN’s database. Richard displayed a sample WHOIS record which showed “Private Residence” used in place of the street address and phone number. This could be offered to all residential services, not just DSL. Several approaches were suggested, but with a show of hands, a narrow majority agreed with the sample record as shown. This matter will be referred to ARIN’s AC.

IPv6 Discussion

Michael O’Neill, Sr. Internet Protocol Analyst, described the IPv6 initial allocation policies defined in the RIR’s IPv6 Assignment and Allocation Policy document currently under revision. Michael reported on the discussions at the IETF meeting held in Adelaide, especially on whether to use /48s, /56s, or /64s for dial-up users.

This generated concerns among attendees that we are giving out too much IPv6 space, and many warned that we should apply lessons learned from IPv4 experience and start conserving now. When asked which is more desired: to allocate /56s to dial-up customers who require it for subnetting, or to allocate multiple /64s, the majority was in favor of /64s.

Micro-allocations

Cathy Wittbrodt gave a brief description of the micro-allocations BOF she led at the IETF Adelaide meeting. Topics discussed at that meeting were posed to the group: How would making micro-allocations to multi-homed organizations affect routing table size? Should RIRs be included so that new RIRs won’t have to rely on an ISP to get space? What other critical infrastructures should be included? The majority was in favor of keeping ARIN’s policy as is but including additional critical infrastructures, specifically, TLDs, RIRs, and ICANN. This was referred to the ARIN AC.

DAY 2 (April 4, 2000)

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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