[governance] IPv6 address allocations to DOD

[John Curran]

On Jan 28, 2010, at 3:20 PM, Ian Peter wrote:
> 
> Thanks John, I appreciate your reply. But for the record, can you confirm
> exactly how many IP addresses have been allocated and/or reserved for US
> Dept of Defence? (not all of us can read /16 or /13 and make sense of it).
> It would be good to know the exact number. Can anyone give me authoritative
> information on this, as media reports are widely different. Also, am I right
> that this is the largest allocation made to date?

As already mentioned, the US DoD did qualify for IPv6 address space and that
"the justification underwent intense scrutiny".  At the present time, if you
were to review all of the public files, you would find 14 allocations of IPv6
blocks, each one of which is a /22 in size.  Some of these allocations have 
been made out of larger blocks reserved for this purpose, but the remaining
space has not been allocated and will not be issued until justified.  The
total space allocated to date is .000334% of the IPv6 address space.

For translation of CIDR format address notation and corresponding sizes for
the various blocks, see <https://www.arin.net/knowledge/cidr.pdf>
 
> I gather from your comments (and those passed on by McTim earlier) that an
> application of this size lead to a considerable amount of discussion and
> internal clarification before an allocation was made. Glad to hear it. But I
> am still puzzled as to what the documented need would be for such a large
> allocation.
> 
> However, as you say
> 
>> ARIN isn't in a position to disclose the
>> application information related to any allocation, regardless of the nature
>> of the applicant
> 
> Which, while understandable, is a great pity. We do have an international
> climate where the sometimes "special" relationship of internet governance
> groups with the US government is viewed with suspicion, and this large
> allocation without explanation will only fuel those fires.

To the extent that there is a "special relationship" between the US DoD and 
the Internet number resource community, it would have to be characterized
by DoD's remarkable support for the founding principles of the Internet,
including unwavering commitment to actual needs-based resource usage even
to the point of their return of IPv4 address space when possible (which is 
both scarcer and experiencing significantly demand presently):

  <http://blog.icann.org/2008/02/recovering-ipv4-address-space/>

As noted above, the two /8's IPv4 address blocks returned by the US DoD 
is nearly 1% of the usable IPv4 address space at time when we are running
out and have great need.  

> Thanks again for being as open with your reply as you could as ARIN CEO. But
> of course I remain curious and I am sure others do as well.

Such curiosity is quite understandable. The Internet community has set
an allocation policy framework based on documented need, and individual
organizations want more visible overall but for some reason can't accept
having their own plans and architecture being visible for all to see. ;-)

The net result is justification materials being provided under NDA for 
review, and the counterbalance is that any resulting allocations made
are all public, both in daily statistic files and in aggregate in the 
Internet number WHOIS database. I'll be the first to admit it is an 
imperfect system, but seems quite functional.  To the extent that folks
have better ideas, please get involved in the ARIN community; there is 
no cost to participate in Internet number resource policy formation,
and we've received praise from even our remote participants about their
ability to participate in the discussion productively.

/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN




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