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UK Government Owns 16.9 Million Unused IPv4 Addresses

Posted by Unknown on from the who-needs-that-ipv6-thing dept.

hypnosec writes "The Department of Work and Pensions in the UK has a /8 block of IPv4 addresses that is unused. An e-petition was created asking the DWP to sell off the block to ease the IPv4 address scarcity in the RIPE region. John Graham-Cumming, the person who first discovered the unused block, discovered that these 16.9 million IP addresses were unused after checking in the ASN database."

6 of 399 comments (clear)

  1. Who cares by Formalin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just apply the real cure already... This is so ridiculous.

    1. Re:Who cares by GNUALMAFUERTE · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know IPv6 is needed, and it'll be great having disposable addresses to throw at any device. I'll be certainly happy to get rid of NAT in many circumstances, but OTOH, IPv6 is going to suck. I have tens of IPs in my head, which I access daily by memory. IPv4 addresses are easy to remember, easy to pass over the phone, easy to type, and easy to operate (i.e, calculate things such as masks in your head, etc). IPv6 is going to make it way harder, and that's not taking into account he migration process ...

      --
      WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
  2. Sell the Addresses? Don't Give Them Ideas by grcumb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    An e-petition was created asking the DWP to sell off the block to ease the IPv4 address scarcity in the RIPE region.

    Why not just ask them to do the right thing and give them back to RIPE? I mean seriously, what kind of example are we trying to set here? Or maybe someone's just trying to bootstrap a market for IPv4 addresses in order to cash in on the increasing scarcity....

    ... In any case, encouraging profit from a public resource like this is a terrible idea.

    --
    Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
    1. Re:Sell the Addresses? Don't Give Them Ideas by jibjibjib · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Giving away a block of IPv4 addresses worth about $1 billion is the same as literally giving away $1 billion of taxpayers' money. I don't think that would be doing "the right thing" for the people of the UK.

    2. Re:Sell the Addresses? Don't Give Them Ideas by jibjibjib · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The amount it cost in 1994 is irrelevant in the decision about what to do with it now.

      If it can be sold for $1 billion, then giving it away for nothing is equivalent to giving away $1 billion.

  3. relatively common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This sort of thing is relatively common, it's probably used internally as a routable address space, but not intended for use on the public Internet. (Saves have to deal with multiple uses of rfc1918). This sort of thing is very common in the government (though usually much less than an /8). They can't use a consistent rfc1918 address space internally as whenever the government changes it's priorities, work units will shuffle between departments. You'll probably find that this address space is now used by many departments, and trying to move all users over to another range will cost more than they can recover from selling the /8