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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

#61
post #7

I’m more surprised that a single IP address is worth $20 apparently than Amazon owning 100 million of them. What I wonder, is it a competitive advantage for Amazon at this point that they have so many? Phrased differently, would it benefit Amazon if the current status quo of IPv4 vs IPv6 adoption is maintained?

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…

> I own 2048 IPv4’s myself and their value is ever increasing. Like digital real estate, without the fluctuation of crypto.

Until the day when ipv6-only connectivity becomes practical/commonplace. At some point ipv4 market is going to crash when they are simply not needed anymore. Of course that inflection point might still be quite far away, but I wouldn't count on ipv4 stock being a retirement fund

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

#62
post #45
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't take too much to make a breakdown of IP announcements. Ownership is a bit harder to track down, I think. Looking at something like https://bgp.he.net/AS32934#_prefixes will tell you what IPs Facebook announces. Rinse and repeat for whoever else. Maybe a bit tricky if you need to track down subsidiary ASes. Disclosure: I worked for WhatsApp including while it was part of Facebook, and was involved in getti…

Stupid question: why does WhatsApp need to be its own AS?

It's helpful for some network policy issues.

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

#63
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of NAT going on these days, and a lot of shared addresses. All those devices aren't all online at the same time. As I see it, IPv6 can't come fast enough. NAT really needs to die a death so people can actually use the internet fully, not only as a client or using hack-y work-arounds.

I want ipv6 as much as anyone, but we are not spending enough time preparing for NATs death. It's responsible for far more security than we as a collective would like to admit and there's a lot more we could be doing now to get ready.

Most routers I have seen do not leave ipv6 unprotected. By default they block incoming connections like nat would.

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

#64
post #14

From what I understand the problem with IPv6 isn't technical problems it is with legacy. According to what I know in Africa and Asia they have mostly already been running on IPv6 the problem is just basically a bunch of lazy network admins in NA and the EU that don't want to learn the new tech and organizations that don't want to switch.

Well, yes, legacy. But, > …a bunch of lazy network admins in NA and the EU that don't want to learn the new tech… That’s a cheap shot, and it’s not called for. Network admins are paid to make the networks run. Anything else is less important. If your IPv6 network experiences some small problems, well, you’re going to hold on to IPv4 because small network problems can mean big inefficiencies or lost sales. Just a few…

Definitely. At our company our network provider decided that it's better for us to use ipv6 from now on. For one day the customer support couldn't figure out what was wrong with our network. They even suggested that the recent heavy rain might have damaged the lines. Finally after a few struggles they mentioned in one sentence that they switched our region to ipv6 only, and that was when we, the customer, realized what's wrong. And obviously, we have a business plan. So that was one day of work without any internet.

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

#65

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?

We are out of ipv4 addresses. That is why amazons stockpile is worth $2B, that's how we are reduced to trading the existing addresses at ever increasing prices instead of getting new fresh ones essentially for free

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

#66
post #53
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen some VM providers charge more to get an instance with IPv4 connectivity. Amazon doesn't charge extra for that (last I looked anyway), so that's a potential advantage. IPv6 penetration is growing, but Akamai reports that even the most IPv6 networks only go to ~ 92% IPv6. So if you want to have full reach, you need IPv4, but you don't really need IPv6 (although, you may want it, some of the CGNAT systems that…

Do users on cgnat typically have cgnat ipv6 or not?

Typically not (but I guess it's possible). CGNAT is expensive to run, but carriers do it because it can be less expensive than getting more IPv4 addresses, and it's faster to add capacity than to get addresses. IPv6 addresses are very low cost and quick to ger assigned, so if you're supporting IPv6, and you run low on addresses, adding CGNAT doesn't make sense.

It's much more typical to either have cgnat IPv4 and public IPv6, or just cgnat IPv4 and no IPv6 than to have cgnat both.

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

#67

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?

Sadly this means that the poorer countries give the same IP to multiple users. I’ve received a “you’re doing that too much” error after the first google search of the day on my phone in South East Asia. I don’t remember which country

I’ve had that happen in Europe so I don’t think it’s just poor countries doing that.

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

#68

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?

When i read the title, I first thought to myself that those 2 billion dollars will be pretty much worthless once everyone uses ipv6. But as soon as more ipv6 adresses are used (or CG-NAT), ipv4 adresses will become cheaper, so there seems to be a natural balance which will keep the state of "There are IPv4 adresses left" and "IPv4 adresses will run out sometime soon"

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

#69

I used to own 10k IP addresses that I sold as proxy servers to internet marketers. I made about $20k a month and it paid my bills through college. I had no idea what I was doing and eventually shut down the company, but damn, I wish I at least kept control of those things. If you want to see some sketchy shit, look deeply into what the VPN companies are doing.

I wish I had the same idea.

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

#70

I used to own 10k IP addresses that I sold as proxy servers to internet marketers. I made about $20k a month and it paid my bills through college. I had no idea what I was doing and eventually shut down the company, but damn, I wish I at least kept control of those things. If you want to see some sketchy shit, look deeply into what the VPN companies are doing.

What are they doing?
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