Protect Your Pre-1997 IP Address

CWmike writes "With IPv4 space running out any day now, is your legacy IP address space safe? Marc Lindsey writes that if your company obtained its IP address space before 1997, you have probably received several letters from the American Registry for Internet Numbers encouraging you to enter into a contractual agreement to protect the IP address. But should you sign it? Be careful — there are several issues you should consider before signing up for this, writes Lindsey, who offers a deeper look at the issue."

Comments

Re:I got one

[Spazmania]

IANAL, but here's some perspective from someone who has been in the thick of the ARIN policy process for the last few years:

First, you're talking about RIPE (european IP addresses) while the article is about the registration services process at ARIN (north american IP addresses).

Had you been talking about ARIN, this is frankly the kind of thing where you'll want to sign the LRSA and soon. ARIN will work with you to nail down the details and confirm the registration but they'll want to normalize their relationship with you via a signed contract first. I think they'll still update if you come to them with ironclad documentation, but if you had ironclad documentation you'd have been the kind of person who kept the registration up to date to begin with.

For those who are still contactable via at least the email address published on the registration, now is not the time to sign the LRSA. ARIN claims you have more rights under the LRSA than under the regular RSA but on close examination the claim doesn't really hold up. It's a standard adhesion contract in which the powerful party has reserved the rights to themselves.

That having been said, keep tabs on proposed ARIN policy every 6 months or so. ARIN probably won't seek the legal liability from trying to seize legacy registrations that are obviously in use, but the situation could change.

If you are in the situation where your contact details are dead, I personally think you SHOULD sign the LRSA and normalize things with ARIN. A /24 is going to be worth at least $1000 within 12 months, and probably a lot more. IPv6 won't deploy fast enough, the IPv4 free pool will be gone by mid year and the only source of new IPv4 addresses will be folks who are willing to sell.

On the other side, the unrouted dead registrations without valid contacts are very likely to evaporate in the next 24 months. The ARIN policies for this sort of reclamation aren't in place yet, but mark my words: they will be.