[44net] A few thoughts on recent developments

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