8 ms·

I always wondered if someone had created a biz for the purpose of hoarding IPv4 with intent to “sell them”. We talked about this kind of abuse back in the 90s w

by spydum 7y ago

I always wondered if someone had created a biz for the purpose of hoarding IPv4 with intent to “sell them”. We talked about this kind of abuse back in the 90s when I worked for a hosting company. Part of my job was filling out ARIN templates and SWIP and all that nonsense. Justification was easy, but it occurred to me how easy it would be to fake requests and just pay the trivial fees. There were already some businesses buying up smaller companies for access to their old legacy allocations. Then the massive cloud build ours started and IP consumption became a real concern.

umanwizard 7y ago
There is an active, mature market for IPv4 addresses (just google "IPv4 address broker"), so it stands to reason that there are people hoarding them for speculation. It's not free money, of course -- it's entirely possible that the value goes down, as things that reduce the pressure on the IPv4 address space slowly come online (CGNAT and IPv6) That said, I'm a bit confused by this story. ARIN ran out of addresses in 2015, and it was my impression that since then you can't just get IPv4 addresses for free from them, which is why the above-mentioned markets exist. So, how were they able to keep running this scam after 2015?
- icedchai 7y ago
  Though they ran out of "new" allocations, ARIN is still assigning addresses, apparently from those that are "recycled" / returned to the pool. See https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-issued/ https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-issued/ for recent assignments.
- Arnt 7y ago
  IIRC you can get a laughably small number from ARIN if you say the right things, and you could get a slightly less laughably number in the past. Try saying you're an ISP and all your customers are dualstack already but you need 128 v4 addresses for compatibility or CGNAT or your DNS caches or something.
  - icedchai 7y ago
    Good luck routing anything more specific than a /24 (256 addresses) globally.
  - akvadrako 7y ago
    I doubt they are assigning anybody less than a /24 - it's not globally reachable.
alexpotato 7y ago
This reminds me of a conversation I had with the AC repairman last year. Backstory: we have an old AC unit that uses freon. The repairman mentioned that freon is no longer available for new AC units. I asked if you could still buy freon and he said yes, existing supplies were grandfathered in. I then commented that the price of freon must have sky-rocketed and he said: "yes, it did for a while but then it became cheaper to just get a new unit rather than fill up an old unit with freon." I would imagine that as the price of IPv4 addresses crosses some threshold, people will just start going to IPv6. As Michael Crichton once said in one of his books: "There was no subsidy that caused people to switch from horses to cars". They were just cheaper and easier to operate.
- freedomben 7y ago
  I had an 88 Chevy Pickup Truck that used the old style freon (R12). Man that stuff worked so good. In 100 degree heat that truck would stay nice and cold. It took over 20 years before the alternatives were competitive.
  - natermer 7y ago
    Propane makes a good substitute for R12 with very little modifications. I wouldn't use it inside a home or anything like that, but I have used it to make older vehicles blow cold. It's extremely good refrigerant. The biggest problem people have is that it ends up too cold and icing up the system. It sounds dangerous, but it's really not. Propane is only flammable with the correct mixture of air. Otherwise you couldn't light it with a blow torch. Even if you have a leaky system it isn't going to leak fast enough to cause a issue. Also propane is significantly heavier then air so anything that leaks out is going to go to ground. And the amount of propane you use is not very significant. Cars that end up having issues with propane are typically home built propane fuel conversions with no ventilation under the tanks or connections. The propane can then pool in the low places and build up enough to cause a explosion.
    - freedomben 7y ago
      This might be the most amazing and interesting comment I've ever seen. Thank you :-) What you say makes good sense too since many RVs have propane refrigerators. I've long wondered how it works exactly. Probably time for a DuckDuckGo search.
iDemonix 7y ago
I work for a UK based ISP. We have millions of unused addresses, largely because back in the 90s they were practically giving them away. We're still expanding and using up new IPs daily, but we often sell blocks when the department needs a boost...

by spydum 7y ago

umanwizard 7y ago

There is an active, mature market for IPv4 addresses (just google "IPv4 address broker"), so it stands to reason that there are people hoarding them for speculation. It's not free money, of course -- it's entirely possible that the value goes down, as things that reduce the pressure on the IPv4 address space slowly come online (CGNAT and IPv6) That said, I'm a bit confused by this story. ARIN ran out of addresses in 2015, and it was my impression that since then you can't just get IPv4 addresses for free from them, which is why the above-mentioned markets exist. So, how were they able to keep running this scam after 2015?

icedchai 7y ago
Though they ran out of "new" allocations, ARIN is still assigning addresses, apparently from those that are "recycled" / returned to the pool. See https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-issued/ https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-issued/ for recent assignments.
Arnt 7y ago
IIRC you can get a laughably small number from ARIN if you say the right things, and you could get a slightly less laughably number in the past. Try saying you're an ISP and all your customers are dualstack already but you need 128 v4 addresses for compatibility or CGNAT or your DNS caches or something.
- icedchai 7y ago
  Good luck routing anything more specific than a /24 (256 addresses) globally.
- akvadrako 7y ago
  I doubt they are assigning anybody less than a /24 - it's not globally reachable.

alexpotato 7y ago

This reminds me of a conversation I had with the AC repairman last year. Backstory: we have an old AC unit that uses freon. The repairman mentioned that freon is no longer available for new AC units. I asked if you could still buy freon and he said yes, existing supplies were grandfathered in. I then commented that the price of freon must have sky-rocketed and he said: "yes, it did for a while but then it became cheaper to just get a new unit rather than fill up an old unit with freon." I would imagine that as the price of IPv4 addresses crosses some threshold, people will just start going to IPv6. As Michael Crichton once said in one of his books: "There was no subsidy that caused people to switch from horses to cars". They were just cheaper and easier to operate.

freedomben 7y ago
I had an 88 Chevy Pickup Truck that used the old style freon (R12). Man that stuff worked so good. In 100 degree heat that truck would stay nice and cold. It took over 20 years before the alternatives were competitive.
- natermer 7y ago
  Propane makes a good substitute for R12 with very little modifications. I wouldn't use it inside a home or anything like that, but I have used it to make older vehicles blow cold. It's extremely good refrigerant. The biggest problem people have is that it ends up too cold and icing up the system. It sounds dangerous, but it's really not. Propane is only flammable with the correct mixture of air. Otherwise you couldn't light it with a blow torch. Even if you have a leaky system it isn't going to leak fast enough to cause a issue. Also propane is significantly heavier then air so anything that leaks out is going to go to ground. And the amount of propane you use is not very significant. Cars that end up having issues with propane are typically home built propane fuel conversions with no ventilation under the tanks or connections. The propane can then pool in the low places and build up enough to cause a explosion.
  - freedomben 7y ago
    This might be the most amazing and interesting comment I've ever seen. Thank you :-) What you say makes good sense too since many RVs have propane refrigerators. I've long wondered how it works exactly. Probably time for a DuckDuckGo search.

iDemonix 7y ago

I work for a UK based ISP. We have millions of unused addresses, largely because back in the 90s they were practically giving them away. We're still expanding and using up new IPs daily, but we often sell blocks when the department needs a boost...