...
Its not quite that simple folks. The reason this particular
block is reserved has some real technical merit, while the 69/8
muddle is strictly due to ISP negligence.
RFC 3330 got it wrong. Anyone remember the "Martian List"
from the 1970-1990's? Trying to use the all-ones or all-zeros
network for real traffic is not possible. Pre CIDR it was
not possible to use 192.0.0.0/24 or 192.0.255.0/24. (the same was
true on -every- network boundary) With CIDR,
those boundaries moved to 1.0.0.0/24 and 223.255.255.0/24
e.g. only two reservered blocks instead of hundreds.
Simply having someonechange a DB entry or create an RFC will
not affect the installed silicon base. Won't work.
APNIC is on the moral highground here. They received damaged
goods without notification. IANA needs better technical clue.
--bill
s/silicon/filter/
s/APNIC/Joe ISP/
s/IANA/ARIN/
Note, I don't think either case represents "damaged goods", so I'm not
supportive of either effort. That said, look at the fixes:
Case 1: IANA properly updates RFC's to indiate that 223.255.255.0/24
is not allocatable, and makes APNIC's allocation properly
223/8 minus 223.255.255.0/24.
Case 2: ISP's all across the US must handle user complaints, probe,
test and then e-mail, call, and plead with hundreds, or
even thousands of people to fix their broken filters
I don't see any case where an ISP was in danger of receiving IP's
that "didn't work" from 223/8, unless of course APNIC was actually
thinking about giving out 223.255.255.0/24. That said, it can be
demonstrated that the IP's given out in in 69/8 don't work for a
measurable percentage of the Internet.
My only claim is that if one questionable /24 our of a /8 means
the entire /8 can be returned then clearly someone who receives a
block out of 69/8 should be able to return their space as well
because their entire block is impared.
APNIC has a legitimate complaint, and it needs to be solved. That
said it's a very minor complaint, and returning the allocation is
simply grandstanding on their part, and is going to give fuel to
all the people in other blocks who have what are generally much
more serious operational problems. Maybe it would be better for
APNIC to give up 223/8 for 70/8, since I suspect 70/8 will have
the same filtering problems as 69/8. If they want to make life
worse for their users, more power to them.