19 Jul
2019
19 Jul
'19
6:38 p.m.
This. +1
On Jul 19, 2019, at 12:31, John D. Hays
<john(a)hays.org> wrote:
The sale of 44.192.0.0/10 took most of us by surprise and for some it
somehow feels like a coup. Here are a few thoughts I have had, since the
announcement:
1) ARDC (Amateur Radio Digital Communications), is a California
Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation and has existed since the 11th of
October 2011. ARDC has had control/ownership of 44.0.0.0/8 that whole
time. This corporation allows for continuity of control vs. a single
person being the designated "owner" of the address space. This is a good
thing. (E.g. there is no probate should the “owner” die intestate.)
a) Brian Kantor did the work and paid the expenses to move control from
himself as an individual to the non-profit organization. To my
understanding, he is the President and CEO, who under the direction of the
Board of Directors manages the day-to-day operations of the ARDC
i) Of note: Brian did ask for donations to offset these expenses which
were largely ignored.
2) There are no “voting members” in the corporation, nor according to
the by-laws <https://www.ampr.org/wp-content/uploads/Bylaws-2019-03-03.pdf>
are there any procedures for voting beyond those afforded the Board of
Directors. As such, there was no requirement to get approval from anyone
outside of the Board of Directors.
3) There are no “shareholders” to be consulted in the transaction.
4) Since no individual or individuals can claim to have property rights
to the address space beyond the ARDC, nothing was stolen.
5) Negotiations for the purchase and sale of tangible assets often
require a certain degree of privacy. Public disclosure is a two-edged
sword, it can help or hurt the interests of the seller and/or buyer.
6) As reported in communications from the Board, some non-disclosures
were required for the transaction, among them the price and buyer identity.
a) The controlling entity can be discovered easily using *whois
44.192.0.0/10 <http://44.192.0.0/10>*
b) Based on known market values, this transaction likely produced the
mid to high tens of millions of dollars for the ARDC.
i) Splitting the address space further actually would provide less
value to the buyer and less money to the seller. Based on estimates given
me by a buyer, the collection of 65 thousand /24 in a /8 would only return
65% of the price of the entire /8.
7) The proceeds are going to be used to further Amateur Radio,
specifically through grants, scholarships, and funded studies. Which would
not exist without this action. If administered properly, this will be a
monumental boon to Amateur Radio.
a) I know some of the board members, and of those whom I know I am
confident they will manage this process well and honorably.
i) That doesn’t mean their decisions will be universally accepted.
ii) I have served on the technical advisory committee for ARDC for years
and if asked will help with review of applications.
b) To this point I am not aware of any officer, board member, or
committee member receiving compensation for their work. They are
volunteers.
8) 75% of the /8 address space was retained and only one block out of
the 44.192.0.0/10 had been allocated. See
https://portal.ampr.org/networks.php
a) Of the remaining 12 million addresses, less than half have been
allocated, and a tiny fraction are actually in use.
b) Even though I and others have advocated for more utilization of the
address space and provided tools, tutorials, etc. this address space has
been sorely underutilized.
9) As others have mentioned, this is an excellent time to reexamine the
structure of the network and modernize it.
a) Deprecate the IPIP tunnel mesh
b) Update firewall rules, replacing 44.0.0.0/8 with similar rules for
44.0.0.0/9 and 44.128.0.0/10
c) Adopt BGP and VPNs (or similar strategies) for interconnection and
routing.
d) Develop better management tools (e.g. money allows hiring out
improvements to things like http://portal.ampr.org) including DNS/rDNS
delegation.
10) There were some operational issues overnight such as reverse DNS.
Major ones have already been resolved and the others can be worked
through. No matter how well planned, these things can happen.
11) This will not be reversed. One can involve oneself in second guessing
and fighting it or one can step up and help ARDC come up with appropriate
processes to provide a perpetual fund for Amateur Radio research,
education, and outreach.
tl;dr – It’s a done deal, work with it. Become active and take the
initiative to improve the network.
--
John D. Hays
Kingston, WA
K7VE
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