Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?
blog.benjojo.co.uk
Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?
1–10 of 208 posts
Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?
#2One minor philosophical question. If you are using AWS PrivateLink because your VPC is not connected to the internet are you really squatting anything? You are just aren't using the public internet. This means that you own the entire address space and can decide what you want to do with it.
Of course it still may make sense to stick to ranges you own in case you need to peer your VPC with someone else, but I don't see much difference between using some random batch of IPs that you don't "own" on the public internet vs any block reserved for internal use. Either can conflict with someone that you want to merge with.
Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?
#3One minor philosophical question. If you are using AWS PrivateLink because your VPC is not connected to the internet are you really squatting anything? You are just aren't using the public internet. This means that you own the entire address space and can decide what you want to do with it. Of course it still may make sense to stick to ranges you own in case you need to peer your VPC with someone else, but I don't se…
Yes I didn’t understand this as squatting and made me question if I understood the post. As it is a topic I admit to not being too deeply knowledgeable about.
Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?
#4There are a lot of /24 in use strictly for BGP, even if they're not fully utilized.
This is the public address space, though, and not really "squatting"
Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?
#5No post body was provided.
Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?
#6One minor philosophical question. If you are using AWS PrivateLink because your VPC is not connected to the internet are you really squatting anything? You are just aren't using the public internet. This means that you own the entire address space and can decide what you want to do with it. Of course it still may make sense to stick to ranges you own in case you need to peer your VPC with someone else, but I don't se…
That's not really what the author was getting at. The VPC endpoints just provide a way (via TLS certificate authority logs) for the author to discover DNS addresses that they can then use to check for queries and determine what IP addresses are being used in private networks.
They found a number of AWS users that are treating publicly routable IP space as their own private IP space. If someone were to ever offer a public service in that IP space, the company/network using it as private IPs would not be able to access the public service.
The author is trying to understand how prevalent this is, and to what extent of trouble an owner of these IP spaces would have if they decided to host a public service.
Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?
#7One minor philosophical question. If you are using AWS PrivateLink because your VPC is not connected to the internet are you really squatting anything? You are just aren't using the public internet. This means that you own the entire address space and can decide what you want to do with it. Of course it still may make sense to stick to ranges you own in case you need to peer your VPC with someone else, but I don't se…
Yes I didn’t understand this as squatting and made me question if I understood the post. As it is a topic I admit to not being too deeply knowledgeable about.
I think in general the author's definition of squatting is reasonable. I see it to mean "living on land you don't own" or more directly "using IP addresses that you don't own".
My point is about fully private networks that aren't connected to the internet. I would argue that in this case you do own all of the addresses, even if someone else owns them on the public internet.
Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes I didn’t understand this as squatting and made me question if I understood the post. As it is a topic I admit to not being too deeply knowledgeable about.
I think in general the author's definition of squatting is reasonable. I see it to mean "living on land you don't own" or more directly "using IP addresses that you don't own". My point is about fully private networks that aren't connected to the internet. I would argue that in this case you do own all of the addresses, even if someone else owns them on the public internet.
Thanks. I have a question then.
If you squat as per this definition, can you divert internet traffic designated foe the real IP address to your server?
Or does it only divert it for computers on your network?
Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?
#9One minor philosophical question. If you are using AWS PrivateLink because your VPC is not connected to the internet are you really squatting anything? You are just aren't using the public internet. This means that you own the entire address space and can decide what you want to do with it. Of course it still may make sense to stick to ranges you own in case you need to peer your VPC with someone else, but I don't se…
That's not really what the author was getting at. The VPC endpoints just provide a way (via TLS certificate authority logs) for the author to discover DNS addresses that they can then use to check for queries and determine what IP addresses are being used in private networks. They found a number of AWS users that are treating publicly routable IP space as their own private IP space. If someone were to ever offer a pu…
I agree with you in general. If you do expect to be able to connect to the public internet and map an endpoint over a public address you are aiming a gun at your foot. However the point I was trying to make was about this quote:
> This is useful since it can remove the need for some servers to have any outbound internet access at all.
My point is that if you are not connected to the public internet at all I don't see why you should be expected to follow the rules of the public internet (who owns what). You can use whatever rules you want for your own private network.
Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think in general the author's definition of squatting is reasonable. I see it to mean "living on land you don't own" or more directly "using IP addresses that you don't own". My point is about fully private networks that aren't connected to the internet. I would argue that in this case you do own all of the addresses, even if someone else owns them on the public internet.
Thanks. I have a question then. If you squat as per this definition, can you divert internet traffic designated foe the real IP address to your server? Or does it only divert it for computers on your network?
The author is only talking about private networks. This does however occasionally happen on the public internet (or when a government turns their country into a private network and does this maliciously). The most common source is "BGP Leaks" which is a fun search.