Department of Work and Pensions UK in Possession of 16.9 Million Unused IPv4
Addresses
Written by Ravi Mandalia
Department of Work and Pensions UK in Possession of 16.9 Million Unused IPv4
Addresses
The Department of Work and Pensions, UK has an entire block of '/8' IPv4
addresses that is unused and an e-petition has been filed in this regards
asking the DWP to sell it off thus easing off the RIPE IPv4 address space
scarcity a little.
John Graham-Cumming, who found this unused block, wrote in a blog post that
the DWP was in possession of 51.0.0.0/8 IPv4 addresses. According to Cumming,
these 16.9 million IP addresses are unused at the moment and he derived this
conclusion by doing a check in the ASN database. “A check of the ASN database
will show that there are no networks for that block of addresses,” he wrote.
An e-petition has been filed in this regards. “It has recently come to light
that the Department for Work and Pensions has its own allocated block of
16,777,216 addresses (commonly referred to as a /8), covering 51.0.0.0 to
51.255.255.255”, reads the petition.
The UK government, if it sells off this /8 block, could end up getting £1
billion mark. “£1 billion of low-effort extra cash would be a very nice thing
to throw at our deficit,” read the petition.
Cumming ends his post with the remark, “So, Mr. Cameron, I'll accept a 10%
finder's fee if you dispose of this asset :-)”.
John Graham-Cumming, who found this unused block, wrote in a blog post that
the DWP was in possession of 51.0.0.0/8 IPv4 addresses. According to Cumming,
these 16.9 million IP addresses are unused at the moment and he derived this
conclusion by doing a check in the ASN database. “A check of the ASN database
will show that there are no networks for that block of addresses,” he wrote.
Some people have to learn that not every address is only used on the
Internet. According to the above there will be large swaths of IPv4 left
at various large organizations who have /8's as "they are not announced"
or as the article states it "as there is no ASN".
I'm having problems finding any announcements for this net 10/8, too. Can someone talk to these "IANA" folks about reclaiming it, too? They have a bunch of other space in 172.x they should be able to use...
I'm having problems finding any announcements for this net 10/8, too. Can someone talk to these "IANA" folks about reclaiming it, too? They have a bunch of other space in 172.x they should be able to use...
Don't worry, they'll give in and assign us some more.
1. We can confirm that the address block is assigned to the DWP.
2. In principle, none of the address space is exposed to the public Internet.
There may be a very small number of addresses that have been exposed for
specific purposes, but certainly no significant block of addresses is visible
from the public Internet.
3. The address space is already shared across government. We have used or
allocated approximately 80% of the address space, and have earmarked the
remaining space for use within the proposed Public Services Network (PSN).
The PSN is building an Internet for government, and the DWP address space
is a key building block for delivery of this.
4. DWP have no plans to release any of the address space for use on the public
Internet. The cost and complexity of re-addressing the existing government
estate is too high to make this a viable proposition. DWP are aware that the
worldwide IPv4 address space is almost exhausted, but knows that in the
short to medium term there are mechanisms available to ISPs that will allow
continued expansion of the Internet, and believes that in the long term a
transition to IPv6 will resolve address exhaustion. Note that even if DWP were
able to release their address space, this would only delay IPv4 address
exhaustion by a number of months.
And for 25.0.0.0 to 25.255.255.255 the response from the Ministry of Defense is:
more over, who cares? a /8 is less than 2 months rundown globally...
and, once upon a time I constructed on this list a usecase for apple's
/8 ... it's really not THAT hard to use a /8, it's well within the
capabilities of a gov't to do so... especially given they PROBABLY
have:
o unclassified networks
o secret networks
o top secret networks
o other networks
I'm sure there's plenty of ways they could use the space in question.
Which, the Army? I don't believe that's true anymore. I think all
the Army nuclear weapons have been disassembled or retired. (Quick
check... B61, W76, W78, W80, B83, W84, W87, W88... The W84 was in the
GLCM, and B61-10 used to be W85s in the Pershing II missiles, but
those delivery vehicles are all chopped up).
Or is 6/8 used by more of .mil than just the Army?
more over, who cares? a /8 is less than 2 months rundown globally...
and, once upon a time I constructed on this list a usecase for apple's
/8 ... it's really not THAT hard to use a /8, it's well within the
capabilities of a gov't to do so... especially given they PROBABLY
have:
o unclassified networks
o secret networks
o top secret networks
o other networks
I'm sure there's plenty of ways they could use the space in question.
but we are sooooo expert at minding other people's business
Some people have to learn that not every address is only used on the
Internet. According to the above there will be large swaths of IPv4 left
at various large organizations who have /8's as "they are not announced"
or as the article states it "as there is no ASN".
When IPv4 exhaustion pain reaches a sufficiently high level of pain;
there is a significant chance people who will be convinced that any
use of IPv4 which does not involve announcing and routing the address
space on the internet is a "Non-Use" of IPv4 addresses,
and that that particular point of view will prevail over the concept
and convenience
of being allowed to maintain unique registration for non-connected usage.
And perception that those addresses are up for grabs, either for
using on RFC1918
networks for NAT, or for insisting that internet registry
allocations be recalled and
those resources put towards use by connected networks......
If you do have such an unconnected network, it may be prudent to have
a connected
network as well, and announce all your space anyways (just not route
the addresses)
