On May 22, 2015, at 20:42 , Michel Py michel@arneill-py.sacramento.ca.us wrote:
David Conrad wrote :
In my (early) experience at APNIC, there was significant interest in "vanity" IP addresses,
to the point where folks created multiple companies in order to get particular addresses
when APNIC was allocating address blocks in a predictable sequential fashion.
+1
It has not changed much either : FACE:B00C ???? :P
Come on guys, back in the Novell days we were already in that game claiming FEED BABE BEEF and F00D and CAFE on IPX networks.
Michel.
I’ll point out that face:b00c is _NOT_ a vanity address. The full address in question is: 2a03:2880:2130:cf05:face:b00c::1 which is
a perfectly normal prefix assignment from RIPE-NCC regisetered as 2a03:2880::/32 to Facebook Irleand.
Facebook could have created that same /64 within any /32 they were issued anywhere, so it’s not a great example.
As to David’s argument… It doesn’t counter mine. I said I can only think of a few reasons. David brought up one of the few I could think of.
I don’t doubt that there are several companies that might have those same reasons for wanting to do so, but there are a pretty limited number of reasons.
I don’t know whether or not Google payed anything extra to Level 3 to get that particular /24 (8.8.8.0/24) or it’s companion 8.8.4.0/24 or not. If they did, I’m betting it wasn’t a whole lot.
Do you have any examples of a beneficial purpose for which a company would be likely to outbid the nefarious purposes for such an address in an open auction? I’m betting running a free public nameserver isn’t going to cut it.
Owen