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Court Says Customers May Take IPs Away From ISP 802

Jeremy Kister writes "According to a post on the North American Network Operators Group mailing-list, The State of New Jersey has issued a temporary restraining order, allowing a former customer of Net Access Corporation (NAC) to take non-portable IP Address space (issued from ARIN), away from NAC." The post argues: "This is a matter is of great importance to the entire Internet community. This type of precedent is very dangerous. If this ruling is upheld it has the potential to disrupt routing throughout the Internet, and change practices of business for any Internet Service Provider."
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Court Says Customers May Take IPs Away From ISP

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  • Cool! (Score:5, Funny)

    by SpanishInquisition ( 127269 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:35AM (#9559896) Homepage Journal
    Now I can be banned from Slashdot wherever I go!
  • by CBravo ( 35450 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:35AM (#9559903)
    This is like taking your home address with you, when you move.

    "But I want to live on 115 Baker Street". How can a judge get that dumb.
    • by mrwonton ( 456172 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:38AM (#9559946) Homepage
      Exactly. Its not like changing addresses is impossible. With home addresses, you have mail forwarding, and with IP addresses, you have DNS.
      • by Old Uncle Bill ( 574524 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:55AM (#9560207) Journal
        And why on earth does someone need to take their IPs with them? Crap, re-IP your stuff, change your dns and be done with it. Only thing I can think of is bad/lazy admins. I have had to do this on internet sites that make > $1 billion a year with no disruption. Set your DNS TTL low and make the switch. Within 15 minutes all traffic should go to the new IPs. It's not like someone you knew ten years ago is going to try to contact you on that IP...
        • by defile ( 1059 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:10AM (#9560391) Homepage Journal

          Set your DNS TTL low and make the switch. Within 15 minutes all traffic should go to the new IPs. It's not like someone you knew ten years ago is going to try to contact you on that IP...

          Pffftt.

          Every time I've changed the A record which have always had a TTL of 2 hours, I've seen a small trickle of traffic hit the old IP addresses for, I shit you not, at least two-three weeks afterward.

          Some providers completely ignore your TTL entries when they cache them.

          We kept the old IP addresses active for about a month (and had them do HTTP redirects to the new location, by an alternate name).

        • by byolinux ( 535260 ) * on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:23AM (#9560520) Journal
          It's not like someone you knew ten years ago is going to try to contact you on that IP..

          You insenstive clod! Most of my friends don't have DNS, they can only use IP addresses. If my IP changes, they'll be unable to get their email!

          Next you'll be telling me that bang path email addresses aren't cool, either!
        • by donnyspi ( 701349 ) <.junk5. .at. .donnyspi.com.> on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @12:01PM (#9560905) Homepage
          People can take their cell phone numbers with them so now they want to take everything with them.
    • by crow ( 16139 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:39AM (#9559951) Homepage Journal
      Or even more like taking your zip code with you when you move.
    • by tod_miller ( 792541 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:45AM (#9560046) Journal
      It isn't really that crazy.

      IP addresses are like phone numbers. Except on the other end, there can be anything. In fact the Internet used to run by dialing the exact computer you wanted to talk to didn't it? Or was that pre-Internet? I am too young to remember :-)

      I say we hope he is a bit slow, and let him keep 1 class B and on class D address, two for the price of one.

      May I recommend 192.168.*.* and 127.0.0.1

      He can have them! :-)

      • by pe1rxq ( 141710 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:54AM (#9560190) Homepage Journal
        Its a little bit like phone numbers which are indeec portable, but only within a network.
        (Try taking your phone number accross a country boundary for instance).

        Jeroen
        • by tod_miller ( 792541 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:12AM (#9560407) Journal
          Interesting, phone systems across waters are incompatible, uses different tones and basically seem to have stemmed from several completely different inventions of a telecommunications device :-)

          The internet ip system should be transparent, if anything is working on fixed ip's, then it needn't.

          dns is a layer above. if you register your.ip.in.numbers.com and point it to the same ip, then you can fiddle anything behind it.

          Why does he want his IP? wierd. It is more akin to wanting to keep the same phone number (here I am saying a phone number is like a dns) but also the same phone line and system addressing numbers (the numbers that the exchange sees you as.

          So he should keep his dns, but forget how the ip is running. my opinion.
      • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:54AM (#9560199)
        Wrong. DNS names like Slashdot.org are like Phone numbers. You can redirect where they point to. IP's are like your house address. Try getting the post office to deliver to 1600 Pensylvania Ave, Washington DC, USA with the house in somewhere in Europe. Moving the IP's takes a change in the configuration of the internet routers.
      • by ka9dgx ( 72702 ) * on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:06AM (#9560342) Homepage Journal
        <FirstImpression>
        You obviously don't understand routing. In order to have IP address portability like you want, all of the core routers on the internet would have to have an entry for each and every discreet IP address on the internet... 4 Billion+ addresses, lets say 16 bytes each, that's 64 GIGAbytes of RAM, just for the routing table!

        It's just not practical for small networks (class C or smaller) to be portable.

        It sucks when you're a customer who doesn't have a portable address block, but it's not practical to hand them out to small companies. I wish my company could be dual homed, but it ain't gonna happen.
        </FirstImpression>

        ... previews submission ...

        May I recommend 192.168.*.* and 127.0.0.1

        ... changes mind ...

        <Reconsider>
        Oh... You DO get it...

        Well said!
        </Reconsider> --Mike--

      • by miu ( 626917 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:08AM (#9560366) Homepage Journal
        IP addresses are like phone numbers

        A dns entry is more like a telephone number and that is what should be used for portability. A phone switch can get a local routing number for any dialed number. There is not really any way for a router to do the same for individual addresses in a reasonably efficient way.

        This is a temporary order by the judge and I'm sure once he has a chance to understand the technical and logistical issues the correct decision (non-portability of ipv4 addresses) will be made.

      • by Dun Malg ( 230075 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @01:00PM (#9561647) Homepage
        IP addresses are like phone numbers.

        Actually, IP addresses are like what phone numbers used to be. Back in Ye Olden Days, you phone number essentially described the physical location of the wire pair that delivered your dialtone. A phone number of 471-1234 meant your pair was out of Central Office 47, sub area 1, pair 1234. You could change your last 4 digits, but not your 3 digit prefix, as the prefix designated the physical building where the 10,000 pairs serving your area lived. This is still the case for landlines in many areas (my boss had his shop in 471, but moved a half mile south and Verizon made him change to 477). Portability is possible with wireless phones because (by definition) they aren't tied to any particular physical location. Since a certain degree of soft routing already has to happen to get the call to the cell nearest you, it's not much of a leap to allow routing to other providers.

        IP addresses aren't like that, though. They were never designed to be soft routed. That's what DNS is for. They IP address, in the end, is a number pinpointing the exact location of a physical circuit. There is no system below the IP address level to perform the necessary redirection. You can forward traffic from the old IP address to the new, but you can't take the old IP address with you.

    • by Speare ( 84249 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:50AM (#9560110) Homepage Journal
      This reminds me of the most recent National Public Radio April Fools' Joke: they claimed, very convincingly, that the USPS is working on portable zip codes. People think there's a prestige about 90210, for example. It's almost a brand, by itself. So when they move away, they want to take that with them. The gag was done so cleanly that there were quite a few people fooled.
    • by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:53AM (#9560171) Homepage
      I was involved in a court case a couple of years ago, where the judge (magistrate?) decided that a circular road feature, with a number of lanes going into it and more coming off, around which you were meant to rotate in a clockwise fashion (UK) and which to top it all had a sodding great sign marked "Roundabout" in front of it wasn't a roundabout. Oh no, it was something else.

      When asked what exactly it was then, he said it was 'an exit circular with many lanes' (exact quote - we're talking about the exit of J29 M1 for any UK readers). When asked to point out where, in the Highway Code, 'an exit circular with many lanes' was defined he refused to comment and suggested we move on. Since the entire case was that someone had incorrectly changed lanes on a roundabout without indicating in time, thus smashing into the rear left-hand side of me, 'moving on' was rather difficult as everything was based around the fact it took place on a roundabout.

      The guy in question fulfilled all the cliches - an impossibly Oxford Don-type accent which was obviously put on (I know some Oxford dons, and besides this guy came from Mansfield which has a totally different accent), absolutely smug in his self-delusion of superiority...the works.

      When my solicitor apologised for losing the case afterwards, my comment to him was "Don't worry. My no claims bonus is unaffected, it's a nice sunny day, and I've managed to see purest legal farce in action. I'm still happy".

      I learned to never underestimate legal stupidity that day.

      Cheers,
      Ian

    • Until the early 1990s, anyone could get a block of IP addresses, and it was up to them how they got packets routed to them. This didn't scale well, and it's now virtually impossible. But that's just a result of technical decisions made over the last 10 or 15 years - and they could have been made differently - so there's no reason to expect a judge to be familiar with that. It's certainly
      not as obvious or clear-cut as a physical address or even a post code.

      Presumably as the case proceeds good technical a
  • by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:35AM (#9559908) Journal
    Unlike the whole "keep your cell-phone number" jiberjoo, this is unneeded and will do nothing but break the internet, will it not?

    Isn't the whole DNS system set up to avoid the need to keep your numeric address? I mean, it's irrelevant if it only takes 5 minutes for my new IP to propogate.

    Oh well, I hope this breaks the internet. I'm sick of the internet.
  • The risks... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Glock27 ( 446276 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:35AM (#9559911)
    of non-technical judges ruling on technical matters become evident once again.

    Reminds me of "average" people voting regarding nuclear power...

    • Re:The risks... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by n4vu ( 563076 ) <slashdot@n4vu.com> on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:41AM (#9559986)
      This has got to rank right up there with the Indiana legislature deliberating whether pi should be declared to be 3, back in 1897. At least they had the wisdom not to do it.
      • This has got to rank right up there with the Indiana legislature deliberating whether pi should be declared to be 3, back in 1897. At least they had the wisdom not to do it.

        Wait a sec. You're sure pi's does not equal to three?

        No wonder I can't get this stupid wheel to work!

        Damn Indiana legislature technical specifications!

        • by morcheeba ( 260908 ) * on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @12:16PM (#9561080) Journal
          Bring that wheel to North Carolina! The roads here are especially designed to be traveled on by 6.00 radian wheels -- the potholes are purposely laid down in that other 0.28 radian section. So, not only is math class easier for the slow kids, but we save 4.45% of highway construction costs!

          (of course, out-of-staters with their fancy 6.28 radian tires will experience substantial bumps when travelling our roads)
    • Average people (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tod_miller ( 792541 )
      If average people cannot vote and decide about nuclear power, however uneducated they may be, who should decide?

      If the average person has the power to vote for a leader, and that leader has the power to implement nuclear power, then there isn't much difference in putting anything to the vote.

      The reality is, we have to respect everyones opinions for what they are, no matter how irrelevant they may be.

      I agree with you though about the judge, in terms of law, this is about right and wrong, and in terms of i
  • by nlinecomputers ( 602059 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:36AM (#9559917)
    I don't understand why this was in a court. What use is this to the person that filed the suit. It can't work. Is this just an asshole with a axe to grind who found a stupid/ignorant judge?
    • by LordPixie ( 780943 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:06AM (#9560343) Journal
      I spent half my day yesterday reading the NANOG thread related to this. Knew I should have submitted it. =)

      Anyways, the customer wanted to avoid renumbering their network computers. Their argument was that there is a significant amount of inconvenience involved in renumbering their network. (Yes, we all know how easy it would be to use a NAT. The judge obviously does not.) The original NANOG discussion started here [merit.edu].

      I think they were also leveraging a supposed anti-competitiveness nature to non-portable IP space. Yes, that's right. One of a bajillion ISP's is hurting competition by following the globally accepted rules of the Internet that is the foundation of CIDR.


      --LordPixie
    • by ameoba ( 173803 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @01:37PM (#9562097)
      Well, if you read the court documents [e-gerbil.net], you'll see that the guy suing the ISP is in a bad position; he's selling webhosting to people who sell webhosting to others on servers coloed at the ISP. He's a useless middleman in the deal & has refused attempts at being bought out by the ISP already.

      The basis of his case is that he is completely dependant upon the ISP to do his business & they're rasing his rates to a point where he can't keep his business going, possibly in order to force him to sell. I'm not going to say that the ISP is being nice, but they're not entirely out of line.

      Even with the network being temporarily re-routed, this guy is fucked; he has a single supplier for what he's selling & his supplier wants to start selling directly to his customers. If he was smart, he'd have set up his own datacenter by now.
  • by mratitude ( 782540 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:36AM (#9559920) Journal
    ... but you don't want to pay for it. Take my word for it.
  • by deuist ( 228133 ) <ryanaycock&gmail,com> on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:37AM (#9559922) Homepage
    In other news, the U.S. Post Office is letting users keep their zip codes when they move.
  • OK. (Score:5, Informative)

    by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:37AM (#9559926) Homepage Journal
    Hands up who understands the legal concept of a temporary restraining order?

    Answer : It's temporary, to make sure neither party suffers to greatly until the Actual Judgement gets made.

    Nothing to see here, move along.
    • Re:OK. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:44AM (#9560021) Journal
      It's still ridiculous that the judge doesn't have enough brains to toss the case right out. The numeric address space belongs to NAC, a domain name (if registered) belongs to the plaintiff.

      Like another poster said, this is like wanting to keep your street address and zip code when you move across country. Imagine how well the mail system would work when my address is "129 main st, smalltown PA 21132" and I live in an igloo in Alaska.

      Obviously he doesn't know how TCP/IP works, how the IP address space is organized, or what DNS is (your DNS domain name is your "address", not your dotted-quad IP).

      It's dangerous having these jokers ruling on cases like this. Small-time judges like this one tend to have a god-complex, and just love the chance to legislate from the bench.

      The upside is, if he pulls it off, it'll give the RIAA a hell of a time trying to subpoena ISPs for information based on IP. They'd have no way to know who owns which address.
      • Re:OK. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:49AM (#9560095) Homepage Journal
        Obviously he doesn't know how TCP/IP works, how the IP address space is organized, or what DNS is (your DNS domain name is your "address", not your dotted-quad
        Right. So, rather sensibly, they've imposed the status quo as a temporary measure, and the judge will use that time to find out the background to the case, and will undoubtedly receive amicus briefs informing them. Then, suitably informed, they'll (s)he'll make the decision.

        Theres no reason that a judge should be expected to understand DNS and the Internet routing, any more than you should understand property conveyance law.
      • Re:OK. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by farzadb82 ( 735100 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:52AM (#9560165)
        The upside is, if he pulls it off, it'll give the RIAA a hell of a time trying to subpoena ISPs for information based on IP. They'd have no way to know who owns which address

        Actually not true since your IP will now be "static" and can be almost guaranteed to point to you. If anything this will make the RIAA's life easier since they will only need to do a name lookup against the DNS (or whatever protocol gets created to manage this) to find out who owns the IP.

    • Re:OK. (Score:3, Interesting)

      Actualy as I have been following the Nanog thread the client willing ended there contract and has IP space to move into but is refusing to renumber. The space in question is a /24 so isn't going ot make it to far especialy is people start null routing the block out of pricible. If they wanted to keep the space they should have kept there contract or at least picked up a leased line for the incomming. The TRO is hazardess to the internet and should be killed by any means avalible otherwise people with a /
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Soporific ( 595477 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:38AM (#9559935)
    I haven't RTFA yet, but is there any proposal in how this is supposed to happen?

    ~S
  • Full article text (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:39AM (#9559950)
    Full article text - minus karma whoring.

    There has been a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) issued by state court
    that customers may take non-portable IP space with them when they leave
    their provider. Important to realize: THIS TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER HAS
    BEEN GRANTED, AND IS CURRENTLY IN EFFECT. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING THAT COULD
    HAPPEN, THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HAS HAPPENED. THERE IS AN ABILITY TO
    DISSOLVE IT, AND THAT IS WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO DO.

    This is a matter is of great importance to the entire Internet community.
    This type of precedent is very dangerous. If this ruling is upheld it has
    the potential to disrupt routing throughout the Internet, and change
    practices of business for any Internet Service Provider.

    In the TRO, the specific language that is enforced is as follows:

    "NAC shall permit CUSTOMER to continue utilization through any
    carrier or carriers of CUSTOMER's choice of any IP addresses that were
    utilized by, through or on behalf of CUSTOMER under the April 2003
    Agreement during the term thereof (the "Prior CUSTOMER Addresses") and
    shall not interfere in any way with the use of the Prior CUSTOMER
    Addresses, including, but not limited to:

    (i) by reassignment of IP address space to any customer;
    aggregation and/or BGP announcement modifications,

    (ii) by directly or indirectly causing the occurrence of
    superseding or conflicting BGP Global Routing Table entries; filters
    and/or access lists, and/or

    (iii) by directly or indirectly causing reduced prioritization or
    access to and/or from the Prior CUSTOMER Addresses, (c) provide CUSTOMER
    with a Letter of Authorization (LOA) within seven (7) days of CUSTOMER's
    written request for same to the email address/ticket system
    (network@nac.net), and (d) permit announcement of the Prior CUSTOMER
    Addresses to any carrier, IP transit or IP peering network."

    We believe this order to be in direct violation of ARIN policy and the
    standard contract that is signed by every entity that is given an
    allocation of IP space. The ARIN contract strictly states that the IP
    space is NOT property of the ISP and can not be sold or transferred. The
    IP blocks in question in this case are very clearly defined as
    non-portable space by ARIN.

    Section 9 of ARIN's standard Service Agreement clearly states:

    "9. NO PROPERTY RIGHTS. Applicant acknowledges and agrees that the
    numbering resources are not property (real, personal or intellectual) and
    that Applicant shall not acquire any property rights in or to any
    numbering resources by virtue of this Agreement or otherwise. Applicant
    further agrees that it will not attempt, directly or indirectly, to obtain
    or assert any trademark, service mark, copyright or any other form of
    property rights in any numbering resources in the United States or any
    other country."

    [ Full ARIN agreement http://www.arin.net/library/agreements/rsa.pdf ]

    Further, it is important to realize that this CUSTOMER has already gotten
    allocations from ARIN over 15 months ago, and has chosen not to renumber
    out of NAC IP space. They have asserted that ARIN did not supply them with
    IP space fast enough to allow them to renumber. Since they have gotten
    allocations from ARIN, we are confident they have signed ARIN's RSA as
    well, and are aware of the above point (9).

    If this ruling stands and a new precedent is set, any customer of any
    carrier would be allowed to take their IP space with them when they leave
    just because it is not convenient for them to renumber. That could be a
    single static IP address for a dial-up customer or many thousands of
    addresses for a web hosting company. This could mean that if you want to
    revoke the address space of a spammer customer, that the court could allow
    the customer to simply take the space with them and deny you as the
    carrier (and ARIN) their rights to control the space as you (and ARIN)
  • by B4RSK ( 626870 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:39AM (#9559957)
    This really shows the need for more technology savvy judges.

    I imagine the thought process was something like: "Hey, if we can have cell number portability, why can't we have IP address portability? Same thing, right?"
    • by Politburo ( 640618 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:37AM (#9560670)
      I imagine the thought process was something like: "Hey, if we can have cell number portability, why can't we have IP address portability? Same thing, right?"

      Why does everyone keep saying this, and why does it keep getting modded up? I know it seems like this was the case, since everyone but us is stupid. However, the judge issued a temporary order. The thought process was probably more like "Hey, I have no idea what I'm dealing with here, so I'll make the parties abide by the previous agreement and do some work." If the final judgement comes back and says in there somewhere "If we can do it with cell phones, why not IPs," then maybe I'll agree with what you're saying. Until then, it's just silly elitism and downright wrong. We're talking about someone who has been through law school and is now a judge. Let's have a little more respect.
    • Do you have any idea what you're asking for here? Just what the court system needs, "expert" judges for every imaginable archane body of knowledge. Who wants an "Apple-zealot iJudge, or a "pro-GNU/Linux judge," the "Judge who's an expert at configuring Sendmail on your Debian box," or some such nosense. All anyone needs a judge for is impartial rendering of justice and managing your court experience.

      This is why judges get to grant temporary orders. So both sides can get expert witnesses and other type

  • DNS Solves This (Score:5, Insightful)

    by digitalvengeance ( 722523 ) * on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:39AM (#9559960)
    This will surely be compared to WLNP, but its different in one key way. The internet has a built in system that alleviates the need for IP Portability, that system is called DNS. Regardless of how many times you change IPs, your domain name can remain constant.

    Lets pray the courts don't start setting technical policy more than they already are. How long before I have to enter my MAC address at every console just to make sure any random ARP packets intended for a machine I was just at still get to me here?

    Josh
  • ugh (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dark404 ( 714846 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:39AM (#9559961)
    Matters relating to the internet should be outside the jurisdiction of such judges. The internet isn't a local thing, it crosses national borders. Allowing any non-global entity to pass judgement on a portion of the internet is one step towards fragmentation.

    And talk about turn the DNS system into a tangled weave of crap. This type of thing will completely nullify the idea of ip-address ranges.
  • by div_2n ( 525075 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:39AM (#9559962)
    If this kind of ruling is upheld, look for public IP's to disappear and for ISP's to provide private IP's or at a bare minimum to do away with statics.
  • by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:40AM (#9559968) Homepage
    To be honest, I was half-way afraid the Slashdot crowd would hail this ruling as a strike for the "little guy", but of course most of us are at least a little more technically savvy than the average judge... I think that it is probable (and clearly this is the case with the Judge) that most people think of IP addresses like phone numbers, which of course is not the case.
  • by antarctican ( 301636 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:40AM (#9559974) Homepage
    How stupid can these courts get? Why on earth would someone need to take their IPs with them? If they've configured things such that they're dependent on a certain IP, they obviously have very incompetent system s staff.

    This is what DNS is for, so you can plunk any IP in and have it resolve properly.
    • If they've configured things such that they're dependent on a certain IP, they obviously have very incompetent system s staff.

      You know, there are things that won't accept a DNS name and require an IP address. Some VPN clients are this way.
  • In the long run (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Grell ( 9450 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:44AM (#9560024) Homepage
    Assuming this doesn't happen to whole IP ranges, won't IPV6 lessen the potential impact of this?

    One or two small subnets off the huge amount that will be available doesn't seem so bad, and could spur some interesting development/business plans.

    Just a thought.

    ~G
    • ipv6 doesn't help (Score:5, Informative)

      by DreadSpoon ( 653424 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:39AM (#9560687) Journal
      No, it won't help. With either IPv6 or IPv4, you still need the global routing table entries. That's where the problem is. The global routers will say something like 1.2.3.0/24 are routed to some network equipment in New Jersey. With this ruling, those same global tables in all those routers need to add another entry for a particular IP address in that range to instead go to some other providor. Now imagine if everyone kept their own personal IP address. Those tables wouldn't be able to cleanly route chunks of the IP address space to the ISPs using them, but instead must be filled with tons and tons of rules for individual addresses.

      IPv6 works in a very similar fashion. The only difference between IPv6 and IPv4 in terms of the routing is that the address ranges/chunks are much more abundant and much larger. If anything, IPv6 will make it flat out impossible for the Internet to work if people keep personal IP addresses, because there is no possible way the routers could handle the mapping tables.

      Ranges need to be kept to individual ISPs as they are now. AT&T leases a big chunk of several billion IPv6 addresses and then assigns those as they see fit to their customers and internal network equipment. All the global routers need to know then is that any address in that chunk AT&T leases just gets routed along to AT&T's network. If a customer leaves AT&T, they need to get an IP address in the range of their new ISP. Otherwise, the new ISP needs to add tons of special routing rules to their equipment, AT&T needs to add tons of special routing rules to their equipment, the backbones and global routers need special rules, anyone that has any rules regarding AT&T and/or the new ISP would need special rules added, etc.
  • by wwest4 ( 183559 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:45AM (#9560035)
    > if this ruling stands and a new precedent is set, any customer of any
    > carrier would be allowed to take their IP space with them when they leave
    > just because it is not convenient for them to renumber.

    Umm... isn't this alarmist? If this were established as a precedent (which it's not) it is a state court ruling... aren't state courts reluctant to accept other states' courts rulings as precedent?

  • So what? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tenebrious1 ( 530949 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:47AM (#9560060) Homepage
    Ok, he takes a block of IP addresses, and connects to his new ISP. Surprise, nothing works!He calls the ISP and they laugh. He sues, and a different judge rules he can't force the new ISP to use his old IP addresses.

    So a block of IP addresses is gone permanently from the internet. Well, at least until overturned on appeal. At the moment, it's not much different from companies sitting on large blocks of addresses and refusing to give them up.

  • Can I port my IP? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by krray ( 605395 ) * on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @10:47AM (#9560065)
    I can just imagine what the routing [IPv4] tables would look like. It's bad enough _now_ as it is. Time for everybody to upgrade their memory otherwise...

    Is IPv6 routing at the core level any more efficient? Or would this just aggravate this problem?

    This is ridiculous -- I've switched core ISP's multiple times for various reasons. The sad thing is reverse lookup on a few very old IP's are still unchanged (and I've even sent them reminders over the years [!]). I've been through controlled migrations where nobody notices anything to cut and switch botch jobs and have had little issue flipping DNS servers over to new IP's (I've always served myself at work, home, other offices I've set up, etc :). Sure, some DNS servers won't honor my short timeout setup, but usually within 24 hours the new information has propagated the Internet as needed.

    I've never been willing to pay what it costs to own my IP block or even [!] a single address. I'm not Motorola or Apple and what's the problem with "renting" my IP much like I've only been able to do in the past with my [US] phone number? I love the fact that I was able to port my 20 year home phone line to VoIP -- and because of it dialing in the future will become very interesting. Am I in LA? Chicago? New York? For the poor sap -- is my next call local, long distance, band-b, band-c and what will it cost? Now off-topic and I digress...

    Hopefully the courts don't see phone number portability as precedence ... can you imagine what the telco's are going through in figuring out routing tables now? Something like this could finally melt the Internet. And ironically my phone line. :)
  • This shows a profound ignorance on the part of the court and the part of the former customer of NAC. While IP addresses can be portable, they are not under any circumstances like telephone numbers, land line or cell. There is functional routing information embedded in every single IP address, which is part of why the internet works in the first place.

    Doing this will cause routing tables to grow exponentially if it continues unchecked, as it greatly reduces the hierarchical, logical nature of IP addresses and how they correspond to geographic providers of bandwidth.

    This is bad, this is VERY BAD for the internet. I appreciate the person's concerns, but there is already a solution out there for portable addressing. It is known as DNS. They need to update their DNS records to point to new IPs from their new ISP, not strong arm their old ISP through the legal system into breaking the internet.

    This is a failure of the legal system which will cause lasting damage to the internet, in my humble opinion.

  • by telstar ( 236404 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:08AM (#9560362)
    I'll be moving in a few months ... I'd like to take the following things with me when I move:

    • The next-door neighbor. She's cute, and I deserve access to the same when I move.
    • Hot water. It's included in my current apartment. I shouldn't have to start paying when I move.
    • The wireless internet connection I've been sniffing for the past 5 months. It better have the same strength too.
    • The fruit-stand on the corner on my way to work? Bringing it with me ...
    • My mailing address ... It's been mine for a few years... I'm liberating it from the future owner and claiming it as my own.
  • by Theovon ( 109752 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:11AM (#9560401)
    See, it makes sense to be able to take your cell phone number with you, because people actually use that number. But with internet addresses, it's usually by DNS entry, and your IP address can even be completely dynamic. Therefore, there's no reason to take your IP address with you, especially since it'll screw up internet routing.
  • Details of the case: (Score:5, Informative)

    by davidu ( 18 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:16AM (#9560450) Homepage Journal

    NAC Case [e-gerbil.net]



    The company in question is Pegasus Web Technology [pwebtech.com] run by a Mr. Jason Silvergate.

    -davidu
    • by anticypher ( 48312 ) <anticypherNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @03:47PM (#9563645) Homepage
      After reading the details from actual court documents, it looks like a business relationship turned sour. NAC is making Imminent Death of the Internet announcements in NANOG, and /. picked up the meme. Nasty business, that, considering how clued in the NANOG people generally are (as opposed to how flamebating /. trolls are) It looks like NANOG is starting to realize they were trolled by NAC before the facts were known. Thats the nice thing about public records is that anybody can go pick up a copy and inform the world.

      What Pegasus/UCI/Jason somebody wants from the court order is a temporary window where NAC will not poison the routes to his old IP addresses for the next two months while he completes his migration. This is NOT a permanent breaking of the ARIN hierarchy, and is allowed, but not required, by ARIN rules for customer migration on a temporary basis.

      Damn, and I had a good rant brewing until I RTFAffadavit. But this is /., I should post it anyways and get a +5 informative, instead of languishing here with a -2 accidentally RTFA.

      the AC
  • by mabu ( 178417 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:22AM (#9560512)
    What's really scary about IP allocation is how many individual corporations have so many IPs [whois.sc].

    It might seem reasonable for IBM and Apple to have an entire Class A, but why do Ford, Eli Lily, Halliburton, Prudential, GE, and Merck have entire Class A IP blocks when they're not using a fraction of them??? The IP allocation list reads like a who's who of political favors.
  • All I've seen is a message NAC posted to a message board and very little else. Chances are NAC submitted it to Slashdot as well.

    Unless there's a gag order (not mentioned, and if there was they probably couldn't publicize it as much as they have) there's no reason not to link to the actual court order and other details.

    For all we know someone set us up the bomb by giving very specific, but obviously lacking breadth, information and letting us come to the obvious conclusion.

    This is basic marketting (astroturfing) to try and get the outcome changed by technical people (who think they know what's going on) who the court might listen to.

    It's in our best interest to completely vet out the case before running off half cocked. I wish I knew enough to find the TRO or the customer's side of the story.

    The facts seem clear enough, but the presentation is muddy at best.

    -Adam
  • by Piquan ( 49943 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @12:02PM (#9560917)

    So what's the big deal? Sure, the customer in question has a severe case of recto-cranial inversion. But why is everybody saying that this TRO heralds the doom of the route tables?

    The judge doesn't know the technical issues, so he's issued the TRO to keep things static until he can examine everything and issue a ruling.

    Note that the judge isn't insisting that the customer be able to take his numbers, just that the ISP can't prevent it. In other words, they can't BGP-advertise those numbers, or sell them to another customer, etc. The judge is just asking (okay, ordering) the ISP to set those IPs aside for the time being. If the customer can find somebody who'll advertise 'em, then that's fine too.

    In a little while, the judge will have studied the situation, and gotten amicus curiae briefs, and probably expert testimony, and will issue a fair ruling (which, I expect, will tell the customer to go away and quit whining about his IPs). But for him to be fair in his ruling, he has to make sure that those IPs aren't recycled first, and that's why he issued the TRO.

    The article makes it sound like the judge ruled that the IPs are portable; even the subject says it: "Can a Customer take their IP's with them? (Court says yes!)". The article talks about this as a ruling that may set a precident. It's just a TRO; the judge is putting the brakes on things until he can figure out what's what. There's no ruling, there's no precident, and I expect everything will go back to normal soon.

  • by ndnet ( 3243 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @12:13PM (#9561026)
    Think about it: We all fought for cell phone number portability, but we hate IP number portability.

    To the average non-technical person, wouldn't they seem to be a similar right? More importantly, shouldn't we be able to keep IPs? So lazy ISPs have to rewrite software due to lazy Admins... It's a similar right, so if I pay for a static IP, I pay for a static IP.

    Perhaps the current economic model and technology behind IP routing is flawed in this respect, but does that really mean that they should be, in fact, locked in? It's a pain to change DNS info. What if you are a site owner but not the admin? What if it's some long gone web design firm? Can the average user really change an IP address, even using most registrar's friendly web interfaces?

    This is amazing. We're shouting the same problems that cell phone companies did - too great an expense, need time, not set up for it, unnecessary - but only because it is convenient.

    Why even bother arguing a point when you contradict yourself on a mostly parallel point?

    I imagine this will start drawing flames, but it's an important point at how hypocritical we, in the technical community, have become when we go from end-user asking for a service to admin denying a similar service. It's just my two cents, so if you don't like it, give me a refund. I'll be waiting.
  • by mpk ( 10222 ) <mpk@uffish.net> on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @12:18PM (#9561098) Homepage
    Haven't seen this mentioned here already, but a small update is that according to a later NANOG post, ARIN's legal eagles will be taking up this case [merit.edu].

    This is good news.
  • by hoggoth ( 414195 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @12:29PM (#9561254) Journal
    This Just In:

    The court has just declared that customers may also take their postal addresses with them when they move.
    So now if your customers, friends, and relatives have come to know your address as "1010 Elwood Drive" and you move across town or to a new city, you can bring the address with you to avoid confusion! Isn't that great!?

    Soon each building, or even each office or apartment within a building will have it's own completely unique address without regard to where it is physically located.

    We should make judges and lawyers in charge of more things so we can get great conveniences like this in all our life!

  • by MrPeach ( 43671 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @02:01PM (#9562428) Homepage
    Of all the posts in this thread, only about 5 have a clue what's going on here, the rest have been hysterical rants about how this is going to break the internet, screw over the defendant and other such nonsense.

    The defendant was agressively trying to steal this guys business which he's actively trying to relocate, but the defendant is jerking him around and generally acting like an ass.

    The TRO was both justified and reasonable. Temporary routings are typical when a large netblock user moves to a new provider.

    This guy was more then willing to continue paying them for the redirect service and had negotiated several times with them on contract terms which the defendant agreed to, then completely rewrote when they penned the agreement.

    Complete jerk is what I'd call the defendant.

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