The other IP address transfer market: mergers

The recent Nortel bankruptcy proceeding provided some clarity concerning the legacy space holders property rights in IP addresses. Another transfer likely involving legacy space is in the works. CenturyLink, which became the third-largest telecommunications company in the United States after acquiring regional bell company Qwest in April 2011 for $12.2 billion in stock, has agreed to acquire Savvis, Inc. for $2.5 billion in stock and cash. Savvis has substantial v4 address space and data center assets, much of which it got in a 2004 acquisition of Cable & Wireless. According to ARIN's Whois, about 60 of Savvis's 130 address blocks indicate registration dates prior to ARIN's formation. Looking at the Quavvis [Qwest + Savvis] deal and the recent acquisition of Global Crossing by Level 3, Renesys blog suggests that companies are waking up to the scarcity of IPv4 addresses and demand for those resources could be a reason behind acquisitions.

ICANN’s new “Chief Security Officer”

Jeff Moss is famous in the security community as the founder of DEF CON and Black Hat. He is in Internet governance news today because ICANN has just hired him as its new “Chief Security Officer.” The corporation has issued a self-congratulatory news release, prepared by its London public relations firm, in which various prominent people effusively praise the hire. We offer up our own observations and a cautionary note.

ARIN sets new speed record for policy making

It's racing season, and not just for cars. Some people have accused ARIN of not following its specified transfer policy in its handling of the Nortel-Microsoft IPv4 address trade. But the complainers are just not up to speed. With a few strokes of the keyboard, ARIN has brought its transfer policy into alignment with what's really going on in the world.

Here's the actual sale agreement between Nortel and MSFT

Over on the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List (PPML), a debate is raging about whether the Nortel-Microsoft sale of IPv4 addresses took place under ARIN's Specified Transfer Policy. We understand why ARIN's staff wants to spin it that way, but find it amazing that this debate has lasted more than a few minutes. It's obvious to those who have followed the story and read the documents that ARIN's transfer policy was not a factor in this sale. But in an attempt to contribute facts to the debate we provide here, verbatim, the Amended and Restated Asset Sale Agreement between Nortel and Microsoft. This is the redline version which shows the modifications ARIN was able to secure by intervening in the bankruptcy proceeding. The document clarifies several issues.

ARIN stumbles into the Nortel-Microsoft IP address deal

Something extraordinary happened today in the Internet economy. It is now official: legacy IPv4 address holders – that is, organizations and companies who received their IP addresses before ARIN existed and are not under one of its Registration Services Agreement contracts – have property rights in their v4 address blocks. They can sell them to whoever they like. And the institution that insists that no such property rights can ever exist – the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) has been incorporated into an agreement that legally ratifies this.

Should countries' Internet censorship regimes be challenged in WTO?

The European think-tank ECIPE has released a provocative new report, Digital Authoritarianism: Human Rights, Geopolitics and Commerce, that explores the ties between Internet censorship and human rights, commerce, national security and foreign relations.  Looking at China in particular, it suggests generally that countries should be taken to the WTO for...

Global Internet Governance: Research and Public Policy Challenges for the Next Decade

The Internet’s status as a communication medium that is decentralized, scalable and global continues to pose challenging new problems in governance and regulation. GigaNet, an international scholarly community created in 2006, holds a two-day conference to explore issues such as IP address scarcity, ICANN accountability, the role of social media in toppling dictatorships, censorship, privacy online, and the tensions between national security and Internet freedom. Assistant Secretary for Commerce Larry Strickling (NTIA) will provide the keynote speech during lunch on Thursday, May 5.

Date: May 5-6, 2011

Location: American University School of International Service, Abramson Family Founders Room, Terrace Level (Washington, DC)

View the program and register for the event

No joke: .com zone is DNSSEC signed

As expected, VeriSign placed its key material in the root zone yesterday (click on the picture below to view more detailed key information, etc.). Secure resolvers can now authenticate the .com key starting from the root zone and validate DNSSEC secured domains in the .com zone. Certainly a big accomplishment for the technical community. But a big question still remains – is there any incentive for resolvers to validate?