Re: E-mail from ARIN ref. Legacy Registration Services

[Michael Sinatra <michael () RANCID BERKELEY EDU>]

This is known as the "Legacy RSA" and it is legit.

The American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN) is the Regional
Internet Registry (RIR) for the non-Spanish-speaking portions of North
America, and it is one of five RIRs.  ARIN was created in December 1997
(as the email below explains) and is now in charge of IPv4 and IPv6
addresses in the ARIN region (again, the non-Spanish-speaking portions
of North America).  Prior to December 1997, IPv4 addresses were
distributed through IANA in a much less formal process.  Although there
is no formal agreement to do so, ARIN provides services for these
address blocks (called "legacy blocks").  These services include
maintenance of a whois service, and the maintenance of in-addr.arpa
delegations for reverse DNS.  So, even if you know nothing about ARIN,
chances are they're providing services for you--for free.

Because many colleges and universities were on the net before the end of
1997, they therefore likely received IP address assignments prior to the
inception of ARIN and are hence legacy holders.  You are most likely
receiving the email below because ARIN believes you hold legacy IP
address space.  It is therefore very relevant to many colleges and
universities.

There are movements in the ARIN policy community to further regulate
legacy holders.  The legacy agreement helps protect against this further
regulation and possible encroachment on the address space you currently
use.  However, my understanding is that it also contains a termination
clause for ARIN, but not for the other party.  It requires you to pay
$100 per year for all of your IP address resources (which helps to pay
for the services you receive from ARIN), but if you stop paying, ARIN
gets to take your resources away.

Basically, you SHOULD have your legal counsel look at it.  You should
also discuss it with your CIO and the senior network engineer(s) in your
organization.  You should browse the archives of the ARIN Public Policy
Mailing List (PPML)--and note that anyone can join the PPML and
participate in ARIN's policy discussions, regardless of your current
status with ARIN.  This is the organization that controls YOUR IP
address space, so it's important to know what it's up to.

Finally, here's a link to a useful presentation by Richard Jimmerson of
ARIN regarding IPv4 and IPv6 address space status, given at the recent
Internet2/ESCC Joint Techs meeting:

http://winmedia.internet2.edu/jointtechs-w08/jtw08-15.wmv

Hope this helps.

michael

Clyde Hoadley wrote:
> We received a rather odd e-mail from ARIN.NET this week (excerpt below).
> It's not clear to me what this is about.  Did anyone else received one?
> Should we send it on to our legal Council? Ignore it? Apply for it?  Does
> it even apply to Colleges and Universities?
>
> This is outside my domain of knowledge which, I admit, is growing
> smaller by the hour (grin).
>
> ---
> Clyde Hoadley
> Metropolitan State College of Denver
>
>  >-------- Original Message --------
>  >Subject: [ARIN-20080324.9783] ARIN offers a Legacy Registration
> Services Agreement
>  >Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:11:08 -0400
>  >From: arin-registration () arin net
>
> ...
>  >The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) now offers you
>  >a Legacy Registration Services Agreement(RSA). This agreement
>  >ensures your legacy resources the same services provided to
>  >thousands of other organizations who have received Internet
>  >number resources directly from ARIN since December 1997. The
>  >Legacy RSA contractually ensures that ARIN policies adopted
>  >after the contract is signed will not reduce or restrict the
>  >Legacy RSA address holder's contractual rights.
> ...
>
>  >http://www.arin.net/registration/legacy/
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------