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Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses

dangoldin.com

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Re: Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses

#271
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think it would. Because despite the obvious business advantage they have, any would-be competitor would need IPs at a similar scale. That will either cost a ton more than Amazon has, or they simply won’t be available. I own 2048 IPv4’s myself and their value is ever increasing. Like digital real estate, without the fluctuation of crypto. But I would prefer it if IPv6 would take over IPv4, and fast, because it…

Just out of curiosity how does one go about purchasing and maintaining ownership of IPv4’s. Do you need to do it through your own company or is it possible as an individual. I’ve heard you have to demonstrate you can use them but that was in relation to IPv6’s.

You do have to put IPv4 addresses into use within a year or so when you buy them.

Re: Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses

#272

What, besides DNS, is preventing the migration to IPv6? Is it old technology still in use? My house is completely IPv6 and not intentionally so.

You can’t run an email server on ipv6, as most email service providers still use IP blocklists to score spam. Blocklists on IPv6 are not feasible.

You can. Gmail and Migadu both support IPv6:

    aspmx.l.google.com. 293 IN AAAA 2a00:1450:400c:c07::1b
    aspmx1.migadu.com. 600 IN AAAA 2001:41d0:2:4a6f::
IP blacklists are possible for IPv6 based email. I have heard many work by blacklisting the /64 or bigger subnet. Sometimes also adjacent subnets.

Perhaps with SPF+DKIM and other measures we will be able to rely less and less on IP reputation anyway?

Re: Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses

#273
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity how does one go about purchasing and maintaining ownership of IPv4’s. Do you need to do it through your own company or is it possible as an individual. I’ve heard you have to demonstrate you can use them but that was in relation to IPv6’s.

Depending on which Regional Internet Registry you belong to (based on country of residence/incorporation), the process is roughly: A) justify an AS and pay the fee B) find someone to buy IPv4 addresses and pay them (probably a deposit) C) justify IPv4 address space to the RIR and pay the fee to transfer from your seller D) pay annual dues If your RIR actually has space available, you might be able to skip step B. And…

Until recently, every new LIR got a /22 with RIPE. That’s how I got mine. Right now, none are public any more so you indeed have to buy them.

The whole RIR and IP ownership process is so antiquated it’s almost hilarious. It’s on par with BGP, with is fully trust based as well :)

A fascinating field, that I’m glad not to be a part of any more!

Re: Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses

#274

How are we not out of IPv4 addresses already? Aren't there a billion phones out there? And probably the same number of PCs and god knows how many servers?

If you believe the Android screen Settings > About > Status, my phone is assigned only an IPv6 address, no IPv4.

Despite this, it's able to connect to IPv4 web servers just fine.

All connections from the IPv6-only phone to IPv4-only web are automatically NAT'd to IPv4 by the cell service provider. I've tested this recently and it uses a different ephemeral source IPv4 after a few minutes when doing this. Tested with HTTP, HTTPS and ICMP ECHO. It is definitely NAT.

At the same time, my connections from the phone to IPv6-only web are not using NAT. The server sees the same source IPv6 as the phone reports as its own.

When I enable tethering on my phone, it creates a local IPv4 wireless LAN. Devices on that LAN such as my laptop access the web using IPv4, which is NAT'd twice: Once on the phone when crossing from the WLAN to the cell network, then by the cell service provider to get an ephemeral source IPv4. This is double NAT.

When the Linux VM on my laptop connects to an internet service and I'm using the Wifi hotspot on my phone, there's yet another NAT in the way, on the laptop itself. This is triple NAT.

All this NAT means it doesn't matter so much that we are out of IPv4 addresses for phones. They can connect to both IPv4-only and IPv6-only services while assigned only a public IPv6.

In fact phones don't need a public IPv6 either. They don't need any public address.

Those NAT'd IPv4 connections don't go over the IPv6 link. They are not being translated to IPv6 and back. Rather, they go over what is effectively a private IPv4 tunnel to the cell provider. Just as IPv4 connections can work like that, so could IPv6 so there's no real need for the phone to report that it has any public IPv6 or IPv4 address at all.

However, mine is currently reporting a public IPv6 and no IPv4, while able to make connections to both.

Re: Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thinking of the opt-inners seems to be (roughly) that : -IPv6 is fundamentally much more secure than IPv4 (no scanning, etc.) -opt-out is bad for innovation, especially since the cheap default ISP router firewall software is likely to not even allow opt-out for any other protocols than TCP and UDP. (Heck, these days on IPv4 even anything different than HTTPS can be problematic...) -reliance on router firewalls is…

> IPv6 is fundamentally much more secure than IPv4 (no scanning, etc.) The same was true for ipv4 until about a decade ago. > opt-out is bad for innovation, especially since the cheap default ISP router firewall software is likely to not even allow opt-out for any other protocols than TCP and UDP. (Heck, these days on IPv4 even anything different than HTTPS can be problematic...) I can't wait for conficker6 to innova…

> Your 50/50 example is hugely biased, first it's on a Telco discussion forum so that clearly selects for technical users, then it's on ipv6 which is going to further select for technical people.

As you can see I'm aware of that, they are also aware of that, and the discussion is not so much about themselves (since they know how to configure a firewall or even to install their own router), but about what your "average grandma" should get.

Re: Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses

#276
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My startup offers a residential IP sharing model where users get paid to share their bandwidth: https://packetstream.io

Hang on I can make money by sharing my internet at night when I don't use it anyway and US persons might need internet from NL? That sounds awesome. edit: The information on how it's secured for packeteers seems a bit limited. (how do you prevent people spraying 192.168.1.1 into all endpoints?). But it's interesting enough to hit up in a seperate docker network. I'm looking forward to seeing if it'll actually use GBs…

I don't know about NL or elsewhere, but I'm pretty sure this can get you in trouble in Spain for several reasons:

1. Check your ISP contract. If it is a residential connection, it probably says you are not allowed to share your connection with people outside your home (and it could be argued that you are doing so by running this).

2. Check your laws. In Spain, if your connection is used to conduct illegal activities and you willingly gave access to the attackers (which is what you are doing here) then you are a "necessary collaborator" and would be found guilty of these crimes.

Re: Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses

#277

So do they actually use these addresses for something or are they simply stockpiling them? Some jurisdictions have laws regarding real estate that, if it not be used for about a decade, it becomes legal to squat. This is primarily in densely populated jurisdictions where real estate is a scarcity and the government doesn't want it to go unused. A similar structure could actually be made for IPv4 addresses.

Stockpiling IP addresses is already forbidden (although not really enforced). AWS is using these addresses for EC2 VMs.

Re: Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses

#278

What, besides DNS, is preventing the migration to IPv6? Is it old technology still in use? My house is completely IPv6 and not intentionally so.

For myself, IPv6 address are just to annoying to deal with as a human. It's as much of a mental shift as replacing street addresses with Latitude/Longitude coordinates. So I've avoided IPv6 as much as possible.

To extend this analogy a bit... wouldn't 'street addresses' be DNS and lat/long coordinates be IP addresses?

Can you elaborate a bit? Where do you find frustration with IPv6? I've been using IPv6 for probably close to 10 years now, and I can't say it's been frustrating

Re: Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. If a new organization needs a large block of ip addresses, they just use IPv6. The biggest reason IPv4 persists is because deploying IPv6 can be very expensive for legacy users: new equipment, retraining, hiring. For a large organization, planning and executing such a deployment can take years. There are a lot of fresh new telecom providers in India who do not have that kind of baggage, so they chose…

> You'll notice that if you're on a cellular network, even in the U.S., you will have an IPv6 address. Just a data point. I'm on a cellular network in the UK for both my phone and my phone network (via 4G router). My phone get an IPv6 address only, no IPv4. But my home network gets an IPv4 address only, no IPv6. I can't obtain IPv6 on the home network even though it's the same cellular service (down to the same kind…

>I'm on a cellular network in the UK

>My phone get an IPv6 address only, no IPv4

Please tell me which network so I can immediately switch.

Three unfortunately still don't use IPv6, and I'd prefer if my phone were IPv6-only than IPv4-only since everything else in my life is IPv6 capable -- all my servers, my home Internet, my email provider, etc...

EDIT: So it seems some people have gotten IPv6 addresses from Three last year - e.g. https://twitter.com/Mythic_Beasts/status/1195292901191892992 - so perhaps I just need to wait for Three to enable it for everyone? Not going to wait forever though...

Re: Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, you were making $20,000 a MONTH, and you gave it up? I don't understand.

There's a lot to be said about the anxiety of "I'm making a lot of money doing something I don't understand". I've backed out of businesses where I could have been a millionaire but also could have been in prison for violating some law/regulation that I knew nothing about. It starts feeling like you're running a scam.

For $20k a month I would have started educating myself real fast.
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