I'm in 100% agreement with Brian F. - ARDC "OWNS" 44/8. This is entering history before my time; but when the original "Internet" (as least, what we call "the Internet") was divided up by it's IPv4 address space, Amateur Radio received 44/8. So I would assume that the "Internet Registry" (see RFC1174 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1174 and the very obsolete RFC1366 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1366) who was controlled by IANA allocated that space, as their list reads:
http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/ipv4-address-space.xhtml
044/8 Amateur Radio Digital Communications 1992-07 whois.arin.net LEGACY
It should also be noted that it does not read "ALLOCATED," "RESERVED," Future Use," "Administered by ARIN" or anything - it simply exist in IANA's database as 44/8.
My assumption then would be "some technical white paper must exist." Now, read 'Internet numbers' - RFC1166 - July 1990 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1166 (which obsoleted 'Assigned numbers' - RFC790 of September 1981 and: 820, 870, 900, 923, 943, 960, 990, 997, 1117 1120) you will find:
R 44.rrr.rrr.rrr AMPRNET [PK28] [PK28] Karn, Phil KARN@THUMPER.BELLCORE.COM
That appears the be the current RFC referencing IP addresses; and 44/8 has existed in technical documentation and has been allocated as 'AMPRNet' since RFC790. Prior to RFC790, 44/8 was unassigned (see RFC776 - January 1981). Ham Radio from that time onward has been on par with the likes of the US Army, UK Armed Forces, Eli Lily, Apple, HP, Halliburton, CSC, Xerox, Ford, MIT, AT&T, IBM, General Electric, etc. They "OWN" their IPv4 space!!!
As I mentioned previously, an understanding of The Internet Society (ISOC.org) is necessary (membership is free). Read: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9200359/Protect_your_pre_1997_IP_addr... for more information on the "Legacy Internet" IPv4 space.
We need to stay away from ARIN as much as we can, ie do everything via rwhois and DNS via AMPRnet servers, not ARIN. I'd even go so far to say that ARDC is basically it's own RIR not bound by *ANY *ARIN policy.
-KB3VWG Member ISOC