[[ Changing the Subject: line now because I want to veer off in a somewhat different direction ]]
In message <camdxq5pdlw4ug00f-h5wp2zrak4atdvj3u2en4j-vewresa...@mail.gmail.com>, Martin Hannigan <[email protected]> wrote: >> But seriously, what basic bona fides does ARIN require these days just >> in order to open a membership, totally independent of any resource >> allocations? >> >> For a corporate entity? > >You'd have to ask them, but presumably... Why? Why should I have to ask them? Why isn't the answer to this simple and obvious question spelled out, either the NPRM or in the RSA agreements, or even just on the ARIN web site? It is my hope, of course, that the answer to this simply question hasn't been deliberately burried as a sort of backhanded way of allowing ARIN staff to vet new applicants based on their personal senses of smell, rather than on the basis of objective and publicly-known criteria. I did a lot of reading about this topic last night and I have to say that it was an extraordinarily eye opening experience! The stuff I read raises far more questions than it answers. In the first place, the procedures that ARIN has in place appear to have been designed to make it impossible to create an ARIN membership without simultaneously making the implicit assertion (via a signed RSA) that the organization making the membership application will be desiring to receive number resources allocations. Simple question: Why? In the AFRINIC Region, for one, there is a special kind of RIR membership available that is sort-of analogous to a United Nations "Observer Status". You get to participate in members-only things, including members-only mailing lists and... not sure about this... perhaps even voting, but you _do not_ have any assigned number resources. If this is available in the ARIN region, then my organization would like to obtain ARIN Observer Member Status. If such a category of membership is not presently available in the ARIN region, then why isn't it? Moving on to more topics... I found the following astonishing statement on the MEMBERSHIP FAQ page of the ARIN web site (https://www.arin.net/participate/oversight/membership/faq/): "Your organization does not need to be an ARIN Member to apply for resources from ARIN..." I read this, and I'm like "WAIT! WHAT???" I'm not even sure now what the purpose of an ARIN membership is if a membership isn't even needed in order to get ARIN number resources. I do hope that someone will enlighten me. The only answer that comes immediately to mind is that maybe some organizations just want resources and are perfectly happy to do without any voting rights. But even that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Why would anyone NOT want to have a vote?? Now we come to my most important point. Quoting again from the MEMBERSHIP FAQ page: Is my organization eligible to become an ARIN General Member? Your organization must also have a name that legally exists. What does that even mean? Does the name "127.0.0.1" legally exist? It is not _illegal_, as far as I know! My name is "Ronald Fredrick Guilmette". That name exists. Legally. It is on both my birth certificate amd my driver's license, as well as in many other places connected to me, such as financial institutions, property records, etc. (Of course, it could be argued that "Ronald Fredrick Guilmette" is not in any meaningful sense "organized", but that's besides the point.) I want to know, precisely, what will cause ARIN to assert that a given name _does_ "legally exist" and conversely, what will cause it to assert that a given name _does not_ "legally exist". Of course I'd also like to know both how and, more importantly, *when* ARIN makes its determination(s) that a given name does or does not "legally exist". It would appear, based on facts that I've previously posted here, that ARIN does not vet the continued existance of its member organizations on any kind of an ongoing basis, but rather only as a "one-off" at the beginning of the member's term of membership. But I will, of course, be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong about that. In my state (California) a sole proprietor may legal forgo any registration with the state and may opt instead to just obtain the legal right to use a so-called "Fictitious Business Name". Rights to use such names are issued by California counties, and sole proprietors are required to have one in each county within which they do business. These "FBNs" are, in effect, a legal form of a "DBA" or Doing-Business-As kind of a thing. These names _do_ "legally exist" under law within the State of California. So this raises the obvious question: May a California sole proprietor who is verifiably in possession of properly-issued Fictitious Business Name from his county become an ARIN General Member, and if not why not? Maybe I just missed it, but I'm not finding a crisp answer to this question anywhere in the NRPM or the RSA or on the ARIN web site. I hope that everyone will forgive me. I am not just being penatic here just for the sake of being pedantic. This all relates back to what I would have hoped would be a simple question with a simple answer: "What basic bona fides does ARIN require these days just in order to open a membership?" >From where I am sitting, and based upon the admittedly limited amount of >searching and reading I've done, the answer seem to be "none". But that answer itself raises a whole host of questions. Being naive, as I admittedly am, I would have thought that ARIN would require from each prospective new applicant (for either membership or resources) at least as much documentation of the real existance of the applying organization as I need to show in order to just simply get my suit coat back from the dry cleaners. But based upon my reading of the available public documents, this seems not to be the case, or at least not always. A friend recently related to me his account of a prior interaction he had with ARIN. Based on what he told me, it would appear to be the case that, in many cases, ARIN may be doing its own "open source" research to determine if new membership/resource applicants are or are not propely registered within their own country, home state, or province. This is crtainly easy enough to do for organizations that are incorporated within the U.S. and Canada. All of the data is easily and instantly accessible online. In contrast, verifing even just the bare existance of a legal entity that is registered in certain opaque Caribbean jurisdictions is altogether and by design problematic. Many countries in that region have no public corporate registries, either online or otherwise. So this begs the question: If a purported new applcant for ARIN membership or resources is allegedly incorporated in any such opaque jurisdiction, how does (or how can) ARIN verify this alleged incorporation? It would appear that it can't. Not unless it has developed a super-human X-ray vision capability that allows it to see into the secret government files of these opaque nations... a capability that none of us mere mortals possess. Given all that, I have to assume that ARIN has, at the very least, had the good sense to require from any new "opaque jurisdiction" applicant (for either membership or resources) a copy of their government-issued basic corporate registration document(s). If not, then I think that it could be fairly said that current and past ARIN procedures for vetting new membership/resource applicants is providing even less security to the ARIN community, and to the worldwide Internet user community than the dry cleaner's shop on the corner. (The dry cleaner at least requires a ticket before he'll let you have your coat!) The more reasonable and more generous assumption however is that ARIN _does_ require and also _has_ required from new "opaque jurisdiction" applicants copies of their government-issued basic bona fides document(s). But assuming so, then why shouldn't ARIN save itself a lot of time and bother and just require _all_ new applicants to either upload a scan of their government-issued business licences or alternatively, allow them to snail-mail in a photocopy thereof, even if the new applicant is located in the U.S. or Canada? Then ARIN wouldn't be obliged to go rummaging around on the Internet to find out if any purported new applicant organization is real of fake. For anybody who wants to lighten ARIN's day to day workload, this would seem to be a big win, no? Regards, rfg _______________________________________________ ARIN-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: https://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml Please contact [email protected] if you experience any issues.
