[address-policy-wg] 2022-02 New Policy Proposal (Remove mandatory IPv4 PA assignment registration in the RIPE Database)

* Gert Doering

> On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 04:02:19AM -0700, Leo Vegoda wrote:
> > As I read the proposal, it is intended to allow LIRs to prune the
> > records they believe do not add value. It would enable discretion,
> > rather than blind obedience. Is that a negative? If so, why?
> 
> This puts an enormous amount of trust on the LIR, of which we have
> manythousands, in all sorts of experience and responsibility levels.
> 
> If I, as a LIR contact, choose to decide "this is only work for me, it
> adds no value for me", I can use that argument to put no records at all
> whatsoever into the RIPE DB, no?
> 
> ... which would be absolutely contrary to one of the fundamental pillars
> of address policy "registration where the addresses are".

I never quite understood why we appear to be totally OK with not
requiring each individual IPv6 customer assignment to be registered in
the database, while we continue to require it for IPv4.

In IPv6, LIRs may create an status:AGGREGATED-BY-LIR inet6num,
essentially saying something like «in this block there are a gazillion
end users, and I am the tech/abuse contact for all of them».

In IPv4, there is no such option. The LIR is required by policy to
create a gazillion individual status:ASSIGNED inetnums instead, all
containing the exact same contact info. These do not add any value
though, they're just a PITA to maintain.

Is there any particular reason why we can't simply "backport"
status:AGGREGATED-BY-LIR to IPv4?

Tore