Hello,
I know that liquidators will do everything they can to suck the last dollar
out of a company to pay out creditors etc, and in some situations it might
seem legitimate to bundle up IP resources that are being used.
APNIC (not sure about ARIN, I haven't read their t&c) clearly states:
"If there is an insolvency event then the Company may by written notice
immediately revoke all of the Member's rights under the APNIC Documents and
terminate this Membership Agreement."
Now some level of discretion would probably be appreciated as this has the
potential to impact heavily on networks that are trying to recover some
value by selling operational parts of their business. But flogging of a huge
amount of dark address space sounds fairly much like an activity the
registries might want to stop dead.
Perhaps there is a fear at the registries that they might face legal action
if they try to do something about it? It could get very messy. Obviously
these allocations are valuable and people will no doubt find a judge who has
no idea how the system works. A lot of people believe they own them, when
really they own the rights to justify their usage to a governing body. If
they can't justify the current use, insolvency sounds like a perfect reason
for a registry to snap up a few more addresses for their free-pool.
Maybe historical allocations might be a bit different because they didn't
sign any agreement that had this clause in it. Where there's a will there's
a way.
Anyway my 2c
Rob
PS, anyone got some IPv4 space for sale? Beer?
On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 6:36 PM, Andrew McMillan
On Fri, 2011-03-25 at 11:43 +1300, Don Stokes wrote:
On 25/03/11 10:01, Erin Salmon wrote:
Surely IANA/ARIN/whoever could stop this sort of thing just by raising their hand? That would be idiocy, frankly.
Right. The only thing that surprises me about that particular story is the *incredibly* low price that Microsoft paid for those addresses.
In due course the effects of this being a scarce resource must turn it into a seller's market and the price *will* climb precipitously. Sadly, at around USD$2,700 for a /24 I expect that in time we'll see them realising at least a 10:1 ROI for that particular purchase, before the market ultimately dissolves into an ocean of IPv6.
-- *Rob McDonald | *Director Level 2 Systems Ltd *M:* +64 21 902 929 *eFax:* +64 9 974 4734 *W:* http://www.L2.co.nz http://www.l2.co.nz/