In message <199602021407.AA25614@zephyr.isi.edu>, Bill Manning writes:
There were a couple of methods suggested here:
preemptive hijacking - voluntary return - periodic fees -
Hijacking has a number of interesting problems
Bill, There is no need to call it hijacking. If an organization registered an address they are responsible for keeping the contact name up to date. If they don't announce the route, they have not provided a valid contact, and there is no way to contact them, including publishing a list on major mailing lists, then it should be safe to recover the address since every reasonable effort was made to contact them. If a route is not announced, this is a NOOP anyway. If the route is announced, go through the AS path and/or traceroute asking the provider closest to the route for a contact name. Just send a "Dear IP Provider" letter stating "This appears to be your customer but we have no way to contact them. Can you help?". Most providers have a way of contacting their customers. This should help with the 60% that can't be contacted. Yes - I know this is work, so don't take this as a complaint that you are doing something you should be, just a suggestion for dealing with this problem. Curtis