[address-policy-wg] Millions of Internet Addresses Are Lying Idle

Thanks, Michael.

It is a general and (unfortunately) widespread misconception
that "using" an IP-Address(-Block) in line with the resource
distribution policy makes it visible and accessible on the
"Internet" by sort of magic.

While this line of thinking is flawed in the IPv4-world, it is
even more fundamentally flawed in the IPv6-world - but still
popping up again and again in various discussions and policy
proposals. Sigh...

Wilfried.

michael.dillon at bt.com wrote:

>>... has anybody got a link to the actual paper?  Based on the 
>>press reports, the methodology seems flawed, and the claims 
>>about unprecedented scope look bogus.
> 
> 
> The methodology is very flawed because it does not account
> for private internetworks, which do not exchange traffic
> with the Internet. Also, although they took some precautions
> to reduce the loss of their probe packets, there are still
> some things like ICMP blocking, which make large chunks of
> address space completely invisible to them.
> 
> You can read their paper at
> <http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/PAPERS/Heidemann08c.pdf>
> 
> It is interesting work from a technical standpoint, but from 
> a policy standpoint, it is not terribly useful since it is 
> intended to measure the public Internet, not the approved usage
> of the IPv4 address space. Remember, we approve the use of
> IPv4 addresses that are not assigned to hosts. For instance,
> a company can assign a /29 to a subnet with 5 hosts, and their
> LIR will count all 8 addresses as being in use, in conformance
> with RIPE policy. 
> 
> --Michael Dillon
> 
>