[governance] Good contribution on IP addresses and Internet Governance

[Milton L Mueller]

> Which one? George's, Canada's, or McTim's? You might find Industry
> Canada's declaration innocuous, but... ignorant??
> 

Industry Canada's. 

Ignorant. Yes, quite ignorant. 

First, it claims that organizations that were given IP addresses without a contract are contractually bound to obligations created by organizations (RIRs) that didn't exist when the addresses were handed out. Legally, just flat wrong.

Second, it invents a ridiculous category of "black" addresses (and uses typical securitization scare-talk) to imply that unless ISPs' address holdings are placed under centralized control that we will all die from cyberterrorism or be victims of cybercrime, when in fact the addresses were legitimately obtained and the RIRs do not - and should not! - have anything to do with law enforcement. 

Third, it fusses over the word "property" but fails to recognize that unless legacy address block holders' rights to use and/or trade those blocks are recognized, they will continue to hoard those increasingly valuable resources and/or engage in black market transactions that will actually undermine the addresses' inclusion in a globally recognized registry system, thereby actually increasingly the risk of so-called "black" addresses. 

IPv4 addresses are scarce and increasingly valuable and there is and will continue to be competitive bidding for them. Nothing can change this. You don't make IPv4 addresses less scarce by declaring them not to be property. On the contrary. You create shortages, just as every form of price control has historically. 

Further, the intervention had to be withdrawn from the Nortel bankruptcy proceeding because it was late, procedurally clueless and the intervenor had no standing in the process. 

I won't go any further - the intervention is an unworthy target of any more of my time - but you might look into a bit more detail as to who made this intervention and the person's connections to certain ARIN board members. Let's just say it did not come from an uninterested party. 

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