Redeploying most of 127/8, 0/8, 240/4 and *.0 as unicast

Sun Nov 21 05:51:52 UTC 2021

Jay Hennigan wrote:
> On 11/19/21 10:27, William Herrin wrote:
>> Howdy,
>>
>> That depends on your timeline. Do you know many non-technical people
>> still using their Pentium III computers with circa 2001 software
>> versions? Connected to the Internet?
>
> There are lots of very old networked industrial machines with embedded 
> computers operated by non-network-savvy people that are still very 
> much in use.
>
> Think CNC machines in machine shops, SCADA systems, etc. I wouldn't be 
> a bit surprised to find quite a few 2001-era boxes still in service.
>
In the context of re-purposed IPv4 address scopes specialized equipment 
will tend to be fairly limited in its communication needs and unlikely 
to be affected.

I certainly hope they are, otherwise the security implications are severe.

How about we recast this as general purpose internet communicating 
platforms likely to have occasion to interact with these re-purposed 
addresses are nearly certain to undergo an upgrade or more over the next 
decade, or how many non-technical people are still using the original 
wrtg platform to connect them to the internet?

And yes, its quite possible that even then those addresses may have some 
more baggage than the typical IPv4 block in use today (which are hardly 
clean bills of health more often than not).

But the sooner the effort begins the more likely the utilitarian value 
will be there if or when its needed.

Joe