> There are over 600,000 POCs registered in Whois that are only associated > with indirect assignments (reassignments) and indirect allocations > (reallocations). NRPM 3.6 requires ARIN to contact all 600,000+ of these > every year to validate the POC information. This is problematic for a few > reasons: > > 1) ARIN does not have a business relationships with these POCs. By > conducting POC validation via email, ARIN is sending Unsolicited Commercial > Emails.
How do you figure? The RSA makes reassignments subordinate to the service provider's contract with ARIN. The individual address holders are essentially participants in that contract through their service contract with their Internet provider. > Further, because of NRPM 3.6.1, ARIN cannot offer an opt-out > mechanism. Just as domain name registrants may not opt out of ICANN's annual validation request. Somehow they're not spamming. > Finally, ARIN's resultant listing on anti-spam lists causes > unacceptable damage to ARIN's ability to conduct ordinary business over > email ARIN's POC validation email starts off like this: "Hello, ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) is a non-profit Internet number registry. You are receiving this message because either: * your Internet Service Provider (ISP) registered you as a Point of Contact (POC) in ARIN's public database OR * you have obtained IP addresses and/or Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) directly from ARIN We are asking that you verify your POC information below as part of ARIN's annual validation process:" So yeah, that smells like spam even though it isn't. I think you'd do better rewriting the message and the program which generates it. First, the data tells you whether any associated assignment is direct from ARIN or not. Make the message say which is which. Second, you know which assignments are associated with this POC. The recipient may not have a clue what an Internet number registry is but they probably remember buying a VPS with IP address 1.2.3.4 or getting a /28 from their DSL provider. Third, take a lesson from journalism's Inverted Pyramid format: put the most important thing first! In other words, make it look more like: "Hello, As the Internet IP address registrant of [sample three CIDR blocks], etc. your Internet service provider is required to and requires you to maintain a reachable public point of contact with the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN). This contact is used by law enforcement and other organizations which might need to reach you about computer hacking, copyright infringement or related problems. ARIN is the non-profit organization responsible for managing Internet addresses within North America. ARIN periodically confirms that points of contact for the Internet addresses it manages are valid. If you are not the address registrant of [sample three CIDR blocks], we apologize for sending this message in error. You need read no further nor take any action. [Service provider name] will be informed that the point of contact is unreachable in violation of their ARIN contract and will take appropriate action. [Service provider name] has entered the following point of contact information in ARIN's database on your behalf: [POC Record] If this is correct, please click here to confirm [it's 2017, no need to parse an email response and it just increases potentially confusing verbiage]. If there is a problem with your point of contact information or you would like to know more about ARIN and Internet number registry system, please click here. " Clicking on either link confirms that the POC is reachable. Also, does ARIN send an email when the record is first SWIPed? An out-of-the-blue email months after you got a VPS server which happened to have IP addresses could indeed be surprising. > 2) ARIN has previously reported that POC validation to reassignments causes > tremendous work for the staff. It receives many angry phone calls and emails > about the POC validation process. Sounds suspiciously like a communication problem. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin ................ [email protected] [email protected] Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> _______________________________________________ PPML You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List ([email protected]). Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at: http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml Please contact [email protected] if you experience any issues.
