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Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?

blog.benjojo.co.uk

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Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?

#72
post #46

At University where I was working until few years ago we all have had static IP addresses for all of our desktops/laptops.

My old uni holds two /16s which are used for clients. Firewalled, but if you use the Wi-Fi there then you are getting your own "personal" IPv4 address per device.

You mean they are using IP's as they were originally designed? Those people probably have NO conflicts or problems with things like video conferencing, VPN's, etc.

NAT is a cludge, not a security feature.

Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?

#73
Am I the only one alarmed that WD maintains a public registry (via DNS) of MyCloud device UUIDs, their public IP, and their private IP? How many of those are on networks with exploitable routers?

Like, you have an external entrypoint and a target internal IP that you know will contain a trove of potentially interesting data.

Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?

#74
post #65
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then how is it squatting? Even the article defined it as IP space not owned. From the parent article "I will define IP address squatting as “using IP addresses that are not RFC1918 defined and not your unicast space issued by a RIR”." Unless this is meant to construe all legacy assignments as "squatting" which is a pants on head definition.

By analogy, domain squatting isn't using a domain that isn't yours, it's underutilizing a limited resource that's assigned to you. Using IPs for internal networking doesn't necessarily mean under utilizing though; but might not be enough to justify such an assignment today.

I dont disagree, there might-should be clawback provisions for those legacy allocations.

But how do you define 'use' they could easily 'use' them by simply announcing them via BGP and null routing the traffic to the IP's they don't want exposed?

The end answer is still IPv6, where everyone can have as much or as little IP space as they want.

Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of a highly constrained resource, they're using a tiny fraction of what they've been given. That's a weird definition of "using what they have." If I asked for a class C for my business running a local corner store, I'd be looked at like I was crazy. IBM gets 16 million public IPs and it's cool? Yeah, I know you can't perfectly use an IP space, but with 128 offices, IBM could give each office an allocation of around…

It may be difficult to understand now, but back in the 90's, addresses were handed out like candy. IBM got their allocation in the late 80's. I worked for a couple of small and mid-sized companies that had /16's and larger. And we barely used a fraction of that space. I have a /24, personally, registered back in 1993. It's routed to my home network. I know several other folks who were on the early internet, and had t…

Over at a University we run, we like to run like a ISP and only have a /16 to work with, its very tight even now, we have thousands of students using the Wifi, Dorm Networks and such. I do wish we had more.

Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?

#77
post #4

There 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"

This. I have a few /24s and only actually use maybe 25 active IP addresses. If I want to exist in global BGP tables, it's the smallest block I can use for my ASN (and not be filtered out). I think in 2022, the rise of SDWAN, CDNs, and, Zero-Trust reverse proxy services, it's not actually relevant to roll your own BGP, unless you're a big player, or if you just want to fly solo on the Internet.

Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of a highly constrained resource, they're using a tiny fraction of what they've been given. That's a weird definition of "using what they have." If I asked for a class C for my business running a local corner store, I'd be looked at like I was crazy. IBM gets 16 million public IPs and it's cool? Yeah, I know you can't perfectly use an IP space, but with 128 offices, IBM could give each office an allocation of around…

IBM was the original "cloud"... AKA mainframes. They had a LOT of addressed services for decades (still do). If you want to pick on a company for hogging IPv4 space, pick on Apple. They have a /8 and probably aren't using any of it.

I'd thought apple was using its own IP space for its 'services' hosting.

Indeed, both apple.com and icloud.com resolve to 17.253.144.10

Re: Who is squatting IPv4 addresses?

#79
post #53

About 10 years ago, IBM used to use the 9.0.0.0/8 space in basically exactly the same way as one would use 10.0.0.0/8, for internal-only networking. Each workstation got its own 9.x.x.x IP, but it wasn't routable from outside. I hope they stopped doing that, but I doubt it.

At the same time frame HP did the same with their /8 IIRC

Ford does the same.
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