IPv6 mistakes, was: Re: Looking for an IPv6 naysayer...

Michael Dillon wavetossed at googlemail.com
Fri Feb 11 21:44:30 UTC 2011


> Using public address space for private networking is a gross misuse of the
> resource.

No it is not. IP was invented to enable internetworking. The IPv4
address registry
was set up so that anyone who wanted to use IP for internetworking could get
unique addresses. The key here, is internetworking, which refers to exchanging
packets with other networks. It is possible to internetwork without
ever exchanging
packets with the public Internet.

>  Go to any registry and ask for address space for your private
> networking that you do not intend to announce to the internet.  They will
> laugh at you, and point you to RFC1918. (and likely flag you as someone to
> whom address space should never be assigned.)

Not true. Two of my former employers went to ARIN every year or two and
received blocks around a /16 in size, specifically for use on global IP networks
that did not intend to ever announce those addresses on the Internet. There
are several other companies which operate somewhat similar networks.

Also, "announce to the Internet" doesn't mean what you think it does. First
of all there is no Internet to announce to, only peers, There are a
lot of smaller
networks which do announce routes to a small number of regional peers, but
those routes are NOT transitively announced to the rest of the public Internet.
These networks *ARE* connected to the Internet, but you won't see their
routes in any of the major views (routeviews, ris, etc) which are considered
as the global routing table.

> The only reason legacy
> holders get away with such crap is because there's no clear contract
> governing their assignment.

All of the companies that I am aware of who get RIR addresses with no intention
of announcing it on the Internet, are paid up members in good standing of one
or more RIRs. Legacy holders really don't play in this game except for the DOD.

> First off, someone will have to do a lot more than 5 minutes of poking
> router-servers to see just how sparsely used ("announced") the space really
> is.  That includes digging through BGP histories to see if it's ever been
> announced.  Then research who should be in control of the space (announced
> or not.)  Then send out nasty sounding letters informing whomever that X
> address space has not been announced to the public internet in Y years; on Z
> date, the space will reenter the IANA/ICANN free pool for reassignment. (cue
> lawyers :-))  They'd also be highly motivated to return unused space if they
> were being billing for it.

First of all, tools like RIPE's RIS make checking BGP history child's
play. Secondly,
you left out the court cases where the companies all get injunctions
against ARIN
because ARIN did regularly give them addresses under ARIN policy and nothing
has changed to justify pulling the addresses back. These addresses are in use,
i.e. configured in devices that provide a commercial internetworking
service with
packets flowing 24 hours a day.

--Michael Dillon




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