UK Government Owns 16.9 Million Unused IPv4 Addresses

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."

Comments

Let's reserve our favorite numbers now!

[RulerOf]

Am I the only one that sees something like this and immediately wants to call dibs on a "Vanity IP?"
I'll take:

• 51.51.51.51
• 51.52.53.54
• 51.0.0.1
• ...and 51.50.49.48

I'm sure there's an algorithm or list that could tell me all of the possible "desirable" IPs in the /8, but, due to the fact that we shouldn't be greedy, and the completely arbitrary relation to the number 4 for IPv4, and the fact that it's an election year here in the US, I propose that we Slashdotters limit ourselves to four a piece, and leave the remainder to Reddit and 4chan. Or something.

Re:Who cares

[DigiShaman]

Sometimes DNS fails or you need to validate routing tables and troubleshoot based on pure IP alone. Yes, IPv6 is going to suck badly in this regard. Feeble human mind. Oh well, I'll just have to get used to depending on an IPv6 calculator app on my smartphone. That and a TXT list that I can cut-n-paste in a terminal screen. Bah!