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Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

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Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#61

Post by jrockway »

I hate to be a downer, but nobody even knew about this space until it was mentioned here. I've been a ham for almost 10 years and this is the first I've heard of it.

The Internet and ham radio don't mix. The rules of the modern Internet are "encrypt everything and trust nothing." The laws of ham radio are literally "you must not encrypt anything". It wasn't meant to be, unless you want to change the laws in every ITU member state. By the time that's done, we will all be accessing the Hypernet with IPv20 from our personal space stations.

Selling off this IP space to Amazon so that some people can get grants is going to make way better use of this resource than than the ham community ever did.

(I like all the people on the nanog list trying to derail it. "Some of the board members don't have ham licenses!" Not actually a requirement to manage a ham radio organization. Only a requirement to transmit a signal. "There is an antique router configuration out there that creates a peering arrangement between the University of California and Amazon that's not authorized!" Guess what guys, they'll probably shut down the arrangement. They're not going to say "welp, there is no way to fix this, here's your money back Amazon!" The thought that that's a possible outcome is making me laugh. I am sure Amazon can find a transit provider if they need one.)

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#62

Post by nexuist »

jrockway wrote: post #61

I hate to be a downer, but nobody even knew about this space until it was mentioned here. I've been a ham for almost 10 years and this is the first I've heard of it. The Internet and ham radio don't mix. The rules of the modern Internet are "encrypt everything and trust nothing." The laws of ham radio are literally "you must not encrypt anything". It wasn't meant to be, unless you want to change the laws in every ITU…

> The laws of ham radio are literally "you must not encrypt anything"

Wait, really? Why is this the case?

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#63

Post by tesseract »

nexuist wrote: post #62
jrockway wrote: post #61

I hate to be a downer, but nobody even knew about this space until it was mentioned here. I've been a ham for almost 10 years and this is the first I've heard of it. The Internet and ham radio don't mix. The rules of the modern Internet are "encrypt everything and trust nothing." The laws of ham radio are literally "you must not encrypt anything". It wasn't meant to be, unless you want to change the laws in every ITU…

> The laws of ham radio are literally "you must not encrypt anything" Wait, really? Why is this the case?

To enable enforcement of amateurism.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#64

Post by TrueDuality »

mac01021 wrote: post #42
entropea wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't even know about it until yesterday! It's kept quiet and secret I guess. As a ham for 10 years now, I totally would've used this for projects if I could've got allocated space. I believe http://hamwan.org/ is on 44.0.0.0.

As someone who does not know any more about ham radio than can be inferred from "Contact" and "Stranger Things", I'm curious to know what kind of projects you would have used it for.

There are a lot of digital interconnect systems operating on HAM bands. Personally for me I've been part of the ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) network for a while.

A lot of that volunteer work is getting communication up and running to people in places that have been hit by natural disasters. Normally this involves HAM with mobile rigs driving into the affected areas and acting as a hub to get messages out.

Currently this is a voice service "Hey WXXX, I've got a message for the Adam Smith at phone number 555-555-1234. Jane and her family made out of the flood and are unharmed. They're going to try and find a ride to your home in the next couple of days." This is very error prone and would likely benefit from having a reliable digital service available.

It would be valuable at least IMHO to have repeaters that operate as part of the ARES network be vetted and given a tunnel to a public address like this. It's not much but having a recognized digital presence that could be used as an identifier not only for contacting loved ones in distress but also by organizations such as FEMA to distinguish random emails from volunteers on the ground trying to get specific assistance might be useful.

This was kinda just my first wish list item when I thought of how I could use some public space so maybe there are better ideas out there.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#65

Post by jnwatson »

MereInterest wrote: post #45
amingilani wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. You're blaming humanity because a marketplace developed following the scarcity of a commodity? Why was any of this bad behavior? I'm genuinely confused.

He's blaming humanity for maintaining a commodity as scarce, rather than working to alleviate the scarcity.

We did alleviate the scarcity. It is called IPv6.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#66

Post by echelon »

JorgeGT wrote: post #40

Interesting to look at the usage of the block in the context of the entire IPv4 space (2018): https://benjojo.co.uk/internet-2018.png

What are Ford and Prudential doing with their allocation? It seems unnecessary for them to have so much space.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#67

Post by viraptor »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #48
viraptor wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> gold rushing outrageously priced gTLDs to anyone with the money I'm actually happy about that one. For realistic usage, it mostly went nowhere. People with money paid lots and got something they wanted. It's like a crazy rich person building a castle because they can. I'm happy they distributed the money.

the only person it gets "distributed to" is ICANN

Unless ICANN keeps it all under a mattress, it has to reach further. Even bonuses for the leadership will get spent somewhere.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#68

Post by rexarex »

We were supposed to run out of space in the 90s, but NAT was a temporary bandaid that turned into the status quo. Not the original intent, and it’s used as a de facto firewall with really mixed results.

I say, exhaust it and force people into IPv6 like we should all be on.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#69

Post by rexarex »

billh wrote: post #4

> These days, less than one third of the address space is assigned and in use. Large chunks of it have almost never been used This part probably angers me the most as I (and I'm sure many others) have asked for an allocation in this address space and after waiting months without reply was eventually denied the request.

Why not just use IPv6?

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#70

Post by rohan1024 »

rexarex wrote: post #68

We were supposed to run out of space in the 90s, but NAT was a temporary bandaid that turned into the status quo. Not the original intent, and it’s used as a de facto firewall with really mixed results. I say, exhaust it and force people into IPv6 like we should all be on.

There's no incentive for migrating to ipv6 for corporations. I have said this previously NAT breaks the Internet [0]. Without setting an expiration date for ipv4 NAT is going to get dragged to 2050.

[0]:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20253427

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