Community discussion of prop-119

The Open Policy Meeting at APNIC 44 in Taichung, Taiwan discussed prop-119: Temporary transfers.

The following is a summary of the discussion and posts to the mailing list as prepared by the APNIC Secretariat.

This is a proposal to create a mechanism for temporary transfers that would allow organizations to have resources directly registered under them while they are the custodians of these resources. This could apply to ‘customer assignments’ or to commercial leasing as an alternative to a traditional ‘market’ transfer.

Supporting arguments

• Recipients want the resources under their own accounts for convenience and so that they have full control for everything from whois, RPKI, and rDNS.
• This policy would make leasing a legitimate activity. If an APNIC Member leases IP addresses to a network that is not their customer, they are in breach of the membership agreement.
• This policy will stop black market leasing and result in greater registry accuracy.
• This policy will suit Members who only want IPv4 for a limited time while they deploy IPv6 networks.
• Some economies have requirements for the prefix to be registered under their name in order to be licensed to announce the space.

Opposing arguments

• This policy might support spam operations or other forms of abuse.
• It will be costly to the APNIC region to adopt a complex scheme of leasing. It will require changes to the registry system, whois, and will require new procedures for both APNIC and the NIRs.
• Leasing where the source does not provide connectivity leads to fragmentation.
• If addresses are abused while leased, it will be difficult to get them off blacklists. After a series of leases, it might become difficult to know who is responsible for the addresses.
• Provision of information to LEAs may become more complicated.