As IPv4 address space dwindles, there is a debate as to whether an exchange for trading unused address blocks should be created, and ars technical has asked two of its contributors, Iljitsch van Beijnum and Timothy Lee, to argue the case for and against. Timothy Lee argues an exchange for trading IPv4 address blocks is the way to go, saying “there are still a lot of unused and underused IP addresses in the hands of various private organizations. All that is needed is an incentive for them to part with their unused addresses voluntarily. In other words, what’s needed is a market in IP addresses.” Lee says large companies with unused address blocks are unlikely to relinquish them, so an incentive needs to be created. But Lee notes, “the American Registry for Internet Numbers … has resisted the emergence of a market for IP addresses — at least one it doesn’t control. The organization insists that IP addresses are not property and that address blocks can only be transferred with its approval.” On the fairness of a market for IPv4 addresses, Lee notes “critics of selling IP addresses on the open market worry about the egalitarian implications of asking relatively poor countries like India to pay millions of dollars to rich countries like the United States for additional IP addresses. But this objection gets the issue precisely backwards.” He then says “so the alternative to Indian ISPs paying Westerners for IP addresses isn’t that they get them for free. It’s that they don’t get them at all. No one is arguing that Indian ISPs should be forced to buy IPv4 addresses. If they can go straight to IPv6, more power to them. But it would be paternalistic to try to block Indians from buying IPv4 addresses if they think that’s in their interest.” Arguing the no case, Iljitsch van Beijnum states that “US holds about four IPv4 addresses per capita, and most of Western Europe has one or two. But many other parts of the world have much less than that. China has been using up IPv4 address space like it was going out of style, going from having about 8 million addresses around the turn of the millennium to 330 million now. India, on the other hand, has almost as many people but only 35 million IPv4 addresses. Should the poorest countries in the world be forced to buy IP addresses from the West, providing a windfall to some of the richest American companies just because those participated in an e-landgrab at the right moment?” Buying up IPv4 addresses in a market will see companies like large ISPs with highly fragmented small blocks of addresses and that “just dealing with so many different contracts will be a nightmare.” So van Beijnum says his “prediction is that at the ISP level, a functioning market won’t form at all, or will break down very quickly after it forms. All the while, address trading will take away resources, monetary and otherwise, from implementing the long-term solution: IPv6. With no new supply of IPv4 addresses and an increasing number of potential address users (we’ve been using up 200 million new IPv4 addresses per year recently), an address market will be prone to bubbles. Bubbles can also easily burst as service providers move to address-conserving technologies such as NAT and IPv6. Of course the US government can always bail out service providers using the nearly 200 million legacy IPv4 addresses that it has on its books.” “If address trading happens in non-trivial volumes, the address space will also fragment as organizations sell off only part of their address space. Due to the power-of-two limitation, doing this easily adds a handful of entries to the routing tables of routers throughout the world. The IPv4 Internet will become less reliable as older routers operate at peak capacity and routing protocols are stressed. Unless the RIRs throw all their policies out the window and rubber-stamp all address transfers, it will become harder to trace back an address to its user, giving free reign to spammers and other shady outfits.” Both of these articles are available in full on the ars technica website. The article by Iljitsch van Beijnum is available at arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/trading-ipv4-addresses-will-end-in-tears.ars while Timothy Lee’s article is available at arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/the-case-for-a-free-market-in-ipv4-addresses.ars .

ICANN have announced that ICANN President and CEO will leave the organisation at the end of his term on 1 July 2012. Beckstrom has been considered a somewhat controversial appointment with him not seeing eye-to-eye with many people both within the organisation and in the domain name world. It was often rumoured he had a frosty relationship with several board members and senior staff. Under his tenure there has been a sweeping of the broom through ICANN with many long term, and not so long term, employees leaving. It could be asked whether they were pushed, did they see the writing on the wall and left before they were pushed, or did they leave for better or new opportunities. It could also be asked whether Beckstrom also left before his term ended or whether he was pushed. In their announcement, ICANN noted Beckstrom will continue to fulfil his term as ICANN’s President and CEO, which will be completed on 1 July 2012. He has held this position since 1 July 2009. The announcement was first made via Twitter, a point noted by Michele Neylon on his Internet News blog . Possibly unusual, but then possibly reflecting the growing importance and popularity of social networking. Beckstrom’s Twitter announcement said “I have decided to wrap up my service at ICANN July 2012. Press release soon.” ICANN will now begin a search for a replacement President and CEO and while there are no obvious successors, Jeff Moss, currently ICANN Chief Security Officer and also known as The Dark Tangent, and founder of the Black Hat and DEF CON computer hacker conferences, could be a candidate, especially if security issues were foremost in the organisation’s mind. But the board is sure to look widely and globally for a successor with security concerns being one but several issues the organisation has to grapple with. Taking into account concerns from several developing countries that ICANN does not adequately represent their interests could also be a consideration. Beckstrom only served one term and it was often wondered how long he would serve. That he has not appointed to a second term is not a surprise to many. But it is also worth noting that only one President and CEO, Paul Twomey, has completed more than one term in the organisation’s eleven year history. “I am incredibly proud of ICANN’s achievements throughout my tenure,” Beckstrom said in a statement. “In two short years we have advanced this organisation to a new level of professionalism and productivity, and turned it into a genuinely multinational organisation that will serve the world community long after my time here.” Beckstrom has had many notable accomplishments at ICANN. They include the negotiation and signing of the Affirmation of Commitments, the historic 2009 agreement with the US Government that moved ICANN’s oversight from one government to the world, and the signing of the Internet’s root with DNSSEC. The introduction of internationalised domain names under his watch has allowed millions of Internet users to access the Internet entirely in their primary language script. “I can summarise my time here in four words: strong execution, great teambuilding,” he said. “We have built a world-class executive team, and elevated ICANN’s stature through strategic relationships with governments, businesses, top technology firms and international organisations.” A program to launch new generic top-level domains – a major change to the domain name system – was approved in June and will launch in the next year. ICANN’s agreement with the US government – the IANA functions contract – expires in March, and Beckstrom emphasised his commitment to bring the contract renewal to a successful conclusion. “The Board of Directors fully supports Rod through the completion of his July 2012 term and is committed to continuing the collaboration that has produced so many benefits for ICANN and for the global Internet,” said Steve Crocker, Chair of ICANN’s Board of Directors. “I remain committed to leading this critical organisation with the utmost dedication, and to living up to our common vision: One world, one Internet,” Beckstrom said.

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