Re: DoD IP Space

[John Curran <jcurran () arin net>]

Mr. Beckman  - 

As noted by Mark Foster below, the listed contact information for the DoD address blocks is indeed correct, and (as you 
yourself confirmed) may be used to successfully contact the organization.  ARIN does not have the mandate to force any 
organization “to deal” with any other, but I can assure you that the contacts listed for the resources in the ARIN 
registry have been used to resolve actual technical problems without any difficultly. 

Best wishes,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers


> On 25 Apr 2021, at 6:11 AM, Mark Foster <blakjak () blakjak net> wrote:
>
> Hi Mel,
>
> I'd expect ARIN to hold them to account for complying with ARIN rules, if they are subject.  In years gone by, I have 
> been able to contact US DoD organisations using published contact methods to address technical issues. So even if 
> there's technical non-compliance (which i'd agree should be addressed), it could be a lot worse.
>
> As for the DoD's accountability via your system of government, my view would be that instead of bogon-filtering 
> addresses legitimately appearing in your BGP, with the justification being "they havn't before!", you could consider 
> asking them via channels. Like https://open.defense.gov/transparency/foia.aspx for example.  But i'm not a citizen of 
> the United States, so will happily plead ignorance as to whether this is likely to lead you to what you want to know 
> or not.
>
> In my country the government is also accountable to the people. But that doesn't mean I would expect an Internet 
> Service Provider to deliberately sabotage the network access of their customers, either. Starts to feel like a net 
> neutrality argument again.
>
> Mark.
>
> PS: If DoD make use of IP address space that they legitimately hold, i'm not sure you can call it a civilian 
> resource, despite it interacting with civilian counterparts.  Any consumable held by a military organisation is a 
> military resource and they'll make use of it based on their operational requirements. The best comparison I could 
> think of, would be fuel (gasoline/petroleum/diesel/Jet-A1), all of which has both military and civilian application.
>
> On 25/04/2021 7:40 pm, Mel Beckman wrote:
> > Mark,
> >
> > ARIN rules require every IP space holder to publish accurate — and effective —  Admin, Tech, and Abuse POCs. The DOD 
> > hasn’t done this, as I pointed out, and as you can test for yourself. Your expectation that the DOD will “generally 
> > comply with all of the expected norms” is sorely naive, and already disproven.
> >
> > As far as “why does anyone on the Internet need to publish to your arbitrary standards”, you seem to forget that in 
> > the U.S., the government is accountable to the People. Where a private company may not have to explain its purposes, 
> > the government most certainly does in the private sector. With these IP spaces being thrust into the civilian realm, 
> > yes, they owe the citizenry an explanation of their actions, just as they would if they had started mounting missile 
> > launchers on highway overpasses. It’s a direct militarization of a civilian utility.
> >
> > Keep in mind that the U.S. Government — under all administrations — has shown that it will abuse every technical 
> > advantage it can, as long as it can do so in secret. Perhaps you’ve forgotten James Clapper, the former director of 
> > national intelligence, who falsely testified to Congress that the government does “not wittingly” collect the 
> > telephone records of millions of Americans. And he was just the tip of the iceberg. Before Clapper under Obama there 
> > was the Bush administration’s Stellar Wind" warrantless surveillance program. The list of government abuse of 
> > civilian resources is colossal .
> >
> > Fighting against that isn’t political. It’s patriotic.
> >
> >  -mel
> >
> > > On Apr 25, 2021, at 12:02 AM, Mark Foster <blakjak () blakjak net> wrote:
> > >
> > > 
> > > > On 25/04/2021 3:24 am, Mel Beckman wrote:
> > > > This doesn’t sound good, no matter how you slice it. The lack of transparency with a civilian resource is 
> > > > troubling at a minimum. I’m going to bogon this space as a defensive measure, until its real — and detailed — 
> > > > purpose can be known. The secret places of our government have proven themselves untrustworthy in the protection 
> > > > of citizens’ data and networks. They tend to think they know “what’s good for” us.
> > > >
> > > >  -mel
> > > Why does anyone on the Internet need to publish to your arbitrary standards, what they intend to do with their IP 
> > > address ranges?
> > >
> > > Failure to advertise the IP address space to the Internet (until now, perhaps) doesn't make the address space any 
> > > less legitimate, and though I'd expect the DoD to generally comply with all of the expected norms around BGP 
> > > arrangements and published whois details, at the end of the day, they can nominate who should originate it from 
> > > their AS and as long as we can see who owns it.... it's just not our business.
> > >
> > > Any organisation who's used DoD space in a way that's likely to conflict with, well, the DoD, gambled and lost.
> > >
> > > Mark.