Yikes, this does sound like we're being forced into a service whether we
want to use it or not.  At our institution we're the default owner of a
range of IPs we manage on behalf of a public library consortium that we're
not actually a part of (so the consortium shouldn't be accessing our
databases).  The IP registry had grabbed that range of IPs and included
them in our profile, but had them pending verification from our institution
that we actually owned them before making them available to publishers.  I
ended up editing that range to exclude the consortium IPs, and then no
longer had to verify the remaining range of IPs that were correct.  Now
that I really think about this, had I not made those edits, our proxy
server would have been excluded and we would have faced a situation where
our students, faculty and staff were denied access to the services they
should be able to access.  So we would have faced the opposite problem that
you experienced, Will, where people would be denied access rather than
given access they shouldn't have.  Either way, the only apparent way these
problems can be fixed is by signing up with the IP registry and updating
things ourselves... and that's kind of underhanded.  I'm not sure I'd worry
too much about the legalities because it appears vendors, unlike our
institutions, participate willingly, and if they're willing to take the
ipregistry's word that our IP ranges are accurate that's on them.  It's
just really frustrating to think that we'd face these kinds of problems due
to an outside entity getting things wrong on our behalf, and the only way
to fix them is by signing up with them and making corrections.

I don't think I mind them selling our improved IP data to vendors because
that's the kind of thing most free services need to do to pay the bills
these days. I might be putting the work into it, but it's not so much that
I feel like I'm putting more in than I'm getting out of it.  However, as
you point out, Will, there doesn't appear to be a mechanism for opting out
of their system, and that really stinks.  I haven't dug too deep, but I
wonder if there's a way of setting things up with vendors who use that
service to stop using it when we make such a request?  I think I'm pretty
much on the same page as you, Will.  It's a great idea for a service, but
being forced into it will understandably leave a bad taste in people's
mouths, and it also casts a bit of shadow on the service's integrity.  I
get that participation is important for this kind of thing, but I suspect
there are better ways of getting people onboard!

On Thu, Dec 3, 2020 at 6:02 PM Will Martin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I am concerned by the fact that the IP Registry appears to have gone
> around figuring out the IP ranges for schools based on public records
> from the IANA and a bunch of vendor records.  I'm sure that was
> difficult, and their site says it took four years.  When it was done,
> they announced that 58% of IP ranges were wrong, and began selling the
> service to vendors and telling them what our IP addresses are based on
> their analysis.
>
> I claimed the account for my institution and discovered that there were
> 26 vendors already pulling my university's IP ranges from the IP
> Registry.  Unfortunately, the IP ranges were wrong.  To name a few
> problems:
>
> 1) They conflated us with another school in the same university system.
>
> 2) They could not know that there are a couple of IP ranges that we
> prefer to be treated as "off campus" even though they belong to the
> University.
>
> 3) They had no way to know that one particular range of our IPs is
> assigned to a library consortium in our state, and used for proxy
> servers that serve the other institutions in the university system plus
> several dozen public libraries.
>
> The third point is critical.  By distributing these erroneous IP ranges
> on my school's behalf, without permission, the IP registry has
> effectively granted access to 26 of our subscriptions to basically
> everyone in my state.  We are thus in violation of our license
> agreements and will be at risk of legal action by the publishers until I
> can sort this mess out.
>
> Because this involves multiple institutions -- my own, the broader
> university system, the aforementioned library consortium -- I am going
> to have to contact and explain the situation to a lot of people, and
> spend a lot of time checking and re-checking IP ranges, all in service
> of updating the IP Registry's records.
>
> Then they get to turn around and charge the publishers for my work.
>
> But frankly, their business model feels like extortion to me. We have to
> verify their records, or there's a chance that our resources will be
> accessible to people who should not have access because their analysis
> was incorrect.  They appear to have engineered a situation that puts my
> institution in potential legal jeopardy, which we can only get out of by
> improving the data that the IP Registry is selling for a profit.
>
> I am not happy with them.  The basic idea -- a centralized repository of
> IP ranges for bulk updating publisher records -- is both sound and
> useful.  But their business model leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  If I
> could, I would opt out of the system.  But they do not appear to have
> made a mechanism available to do so.
>
> Will Martin
>
> Head of Digital Initiatives, Systems and Services
> Chester Fritz Library
> University of North Dakota
>


-- 
Jeremiah Kellogg
Systems Librarian
Pierce Library
Eastern Oregon University
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(541) 962-3017