The attitude from the RIRs is very much the following: "If we make transfers hard, or in some way try and disallow them, then they will happen anyway and our trusted registry function will suffer." RIRs have always had a number of functions. Handing out IP addresses is only one of them. The other important one is keeping a trusted list of who HAS those resources. This trusted list is what we all want to ensure remains accurate. We use it everyday to find out who owns a certain part of the internet. If we can't trust that list anymore, then we will loose the ability to trace accountability on the internet. Anything that we do to encourage the underground or blackmarket transfer of IP addresses harms this function. ARIN might have been able to stop the transfer (although I don't know if they actually could have done anything except refuse MS any further addressing), but if they did do you honestly believe that a transfer wouldn't have taken place anyway? Regards, Dean On 25/03/11 10:01 AM, Erin Salmon wrote:
Surely IANA/ARIN/whoever could stop this sort of thing just by raising their hand? Seems like a bit of an abuse of process. And MS might be taking a bit of a risk that they'll do that and loose the addresses.
Erin
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