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Re: [anti-spam-wg] Any suggestions about how to deal with non co-operative ISP's and RIR's ?

  • From: der Mouse mouse@localhost
  • Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 14:24:34 -0400 (EDT)

>> The system is severely broken: the RIRs have been given authority
>> (over IP space) without the responsibility to match it (ultimate
>> responsibility for dealing with abuses from it).
> Can you please explain what you mean by "dealing with abuses"

For example, consider all the IP blocks registered to uncontactable
entities.  I've seen various ARIN netblocks with comment fields saying
basically "ARIN has been unable to contact this address block holder;
if you have updated contact info, please tell us", rather than
deregistering the block.  I've seen RIPE take similar (in)action.

I also ran into a case of a provider refusing to do anything about a
spammer problem; I escalated up the address space assignment chain
until I got to RIPE, who point-blank refused to do anything about it,
apparently seeing themselves as having no responsibility whatever for
those to whom they assigned IP space, despite professing a belief that
their assignees did have such a responsibility to police their
sub-assignees.

> and the legal basis for ICANN or the RIRs doing this?

I don't quite understand your basis for saying this, as though by
pointing out the problem I had somehow acquired responsibility for
laying out a detailed plan for fixing it.  But that aside: this is
ICANN's problem, or rather, ICANN's lawyers' problem.  (This is one of
a lawyer's functions, to figure out how to do what needs to be done in
a legally good way.)

To my non-lawyer's understanding, I'd expect this to simply be a clause
in the contract under which ICANN/IANA delegates address space to the
RIRs, making this a matter for contract law - similar to whatever
arrangements are in place to pass responsibility down from the RIRs to
their assignees.

I fully expect ICANN/IANA to wash their hands of this, claiming that
the problem either doesn't exist or is unfixable, until either abuses
get bad enough to force them to change their minds or the catastrophic
collapse I referred to occurs.

I would be delighted to be wrong.

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