Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

blog.jgc.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 127 posts

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#111

Post by rightyeah »

How much does it cost to "produce" an /8? Nothing. In the "magical" world of the internet, you don't even need to build a network to use the addresses on. Nor do you need to prove that you actually have any sort of "rights" (as the legal kind) over the addresses. Because there is no one who can grant you such rights. Hate to spoil the magick trick, but no one owns the internet. The whole scheme works on cooperation of network admins and acquiescence of everyone else.

And the top post claims it would be worth $1BB. Keep dreaming.

The truth is that the value is not in addresses, the value is in the network, and those who own the infrastructure, but of course there is no single infrastructure for the internet because it's a network of networks, owned by various parties.

The telephone company can charge you for a telephone number. It owns the network that you're going to use it on. If it didn't own the network, you would not pay for the number. You are paying to use the network. The number is just a formality.

This same is not true for the internet and IP numbers. The RIR's don't own any networks. There isn't even a clear line to the source of their authority to "allocate" address space. Does the US Government own the internet? Good luck with that argument. RIR's charge fees to "allocate" addresses, an administrative job, but we have no idea how the fees are spent. Maybe to pay the CEO's generous salary? How much work is it to keep track of some numbers? Maybe we should ask IANA. The whole scheme works based on cooperation and acquiescence.

No organisation ever paid $1BB for an /8. They got theirs for "free" (inconsequential maintenance fees notwithstanding).

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#112

Post by ChuckMcM »

kmm wrote: post #97
tptacek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're talking about advertisable blocks, the Germany scenario doesn't happen. For the time being, there can't be a liquid market for /32's, at least not one that works acros multiple ISPs. I agree with you strongly that the 128 bit IP address is a huge design mistake, one that has unnecessarily retarded the deployment of IPv6 (I personally believe fatally so). Even in the '90s, a 64 bit number was still a scalar o…

That is nice to hear. My biggest problem with IPv6 has always been the size of the addresses, which I think is too big, but I always thought I was just being old-fashioned. It's interesting to see other people think the same, although probably for different or more justified reasons.

At the time it was really frustrating to hear people say "64 bits is just twice as big as it is now, that will never last" and I would say emphatically "No, that is FOUR BILLION times bigger!" and get hit with "Well what if every light switch in the world had its own IP address huh? huh?" and I would say "Yup, if that happened we MIGHT use up may 10 or 16 BILLIONTHS of the address space just for lights, the equivalent impact of dedicating a class B in the current address space to lights, which nobody would really think twice about."

Alas, such discussions were not compelling.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#113

Post by wmf »

rdl wrote: post #109
wmf wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not any more. Within the ARIN region it's legal to straight-up sell addresses as long as the buyer is actually going to use them (people argue about this point a lot but it doesn't seem like a big deal IMO).

Where is this done now? I would be happy to pick up a /16 for a project.

https://www.arin.net/resources/transfer_listing/index.html https://www.arin.net/resources/transfer_listing/listings.txt http://addrex.net/

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#114

Post by InclinedPlane »

jrockway wrote: post #18

Who cares? IPv4 is a dead technology and this is like complaining that the UK has a bunch of fax machines in storage somewhere. 10 years ago, this would have been a waste. Now it doesn't even matter. Even Comcast supports IPv6.

Here's my "bold" (aka safe) prediction: IPv4 will still be the dominant network addressing system in use in 2025.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#115

Post by InclinedPlane »

CrLf wrote: post #3

No traces of this block in the public Internet doesn't mean it isn't being used. It may be in use in some internal network(s) instead of a private address range (yes, that happens).

If you're using a /8 for LAN addresses you are doing the entire internet a disservice.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#116

Post by justincormack »

kanzure wrote: post #77
jrockway wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The transition has sort of already happened. Most software stacks support IPv6 now, and many server hosting companies are giving out IPv6 addresses like candy. (I think I have a /48 or something for jrock.us. That's 2 to the 48th IPv4 Internets! I have a lot of computers, but not that many.) All that's left are the clients, and the way I see that transition happening is in the low-cost sector. Sort of like an AOL whe…

How did you get a /48?

Its pretty standard, you either get a /64 or a /48, normally just ask your ISP.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#117

Post by dfox »

rdl wrote: post #105
eli wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But (and someone correct me if I'm wrong), but individual IP addresses are not a commodity. If you broke apart that /8 and auctioned them off, if would be a routing nightmare.

Are there any /8 which can't be broken down to at least /16? I think you can often get down to /19 or sometimes /22.

Smallest prefix that can be meaningfully used is /24 (you cannot advertise smaller prefix), but I think that everyone advertising random /24s would lead to even larger costs for router upgrades than IPv6.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#119

Post by shinratdr »

SG- wrote: post #6
webwanderings wrote: post #2

Eventually in the future, people will come to realize the over-exaggeration of running out of ipv4 addresses. The unused blocks will come out of woodwork from everywhere. Well, I hope my opinion is wrong.

By future do you mean right now where NAT is being used by some providers already? I know Rogers in Canada has all mobile devices going through NAT unless you pay a nice "VPN" fee. Also the assigned but unused IPv4 blocks don't do anything for other providers that actually need addresses.

Rogers only blocks PPTP VPN connections. Also it's not a VPN "fee" exactly, it's an entirely different APN. If your device doesn't allow you to manually edit the APN, you have no hope of getting your Rogers device to create a PPTP VPN connection over 3G because you cant access the internet.vpn.com APN.

However, L2TP and IPSec VPN connections work just fine over 3G on Rogers, no fees or APN changes required. So I'm not positive that NAT is the issue if I can establish the other types of VPN connections although this is hardly my area of expertise.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#120

Post by rdl »

dfox wrote: post #117
rdl wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any /8 which can't be broken down to at least /16? I think you can often get down to /19 or sometimes /22.

Smallest prefix that can be meaningfully used is /24 (you cannot advertise smaller prefix), but I think that everyone advertising random /24s would lead to even larger costs for router upgrades than IPv6.

I think there are still bigger than /24s where /24 announcements aren't allowed. People filtered for a while (at least around 2000-2002) in those ranges, so you couldn't just take a random swamp /16 and turn it into a bunch of /24s and expect them to be visible to everyone, although it did work to most. I haven't paid much attention to routing politics for the past 5 years or so though.
Post reply on HN