Lightly used IP addresses

Sat Aug 14 15:27:24 UTC 2010

On Aug 13, 2010, at 9:12 PM, Jeffrey Lyon wrote:

> John et al,
> 
> I have read many of your articles about the need to migrate to IPv6
> and how failure to do so will impact business continuity sometime in
> the next 1 - 3 years. I've pressed our vendors to support IPv6 (note:
> keep in mind we're a DDoS mitigation firm, our needs extend beyond
> routers and switches) and found that it's a chicken and egg situation.
> Vendors are neglecting to support IPv6 because there is "no demand."
> I've pointed out your articles and demanded IPv6 support, some are
> promising results in the next several months. We will see.
> 
I was at a trade show several months back. I watched a series of people
walk up to a vendor and each, in turn, asked about IPv6 support. The
vendor told each, in turn, "You're the only one asking for it."

I walked up to the vendor and took my turn being told "You're the only
one asking for it." I pointed out that I had seen the other people get
the same answer. The sales person admitted he was caught red
handed and explained "We're working on it, but, we don't have a
definite date and so our marketing department has told us to downplay
the demand and the importance until we have something more
definitive."

> Meanwhile, there are hosting companies, dedicated server companies,
> etc. with /17 and /18 allocations who are either forging justification
> or wildly abusing the use of that space outside of the declared need.

Then those cases should be submitted to the fraud/abuse reporting
process so they can be investigated and resolved.

Owen