[arin-ppml] How bad is it really?

[lar at mwtcorp.net]

  "Dave Feuer " <dave at connetrix.com> wrote:
> Ted,
> 
> Yes, but the question I asked still remains, how much is really out there 
>(and is there an easy way to find out)? Between the 2 of us we have just 
>accounted for 9 /24s are there only those 9 (yeah I know) or is it 9000, 
>900000 or 90000000 or an even grater number (which I think). It's not like 
>we can find them, take them back and combine them into a /8. So that point 
>is moot. It's just more of a hmmmmmm I wonder question.  

There is a LOT of abandoned space. In my case I know of a /20 and two /21's
of PA space that we used and returned to the provider that is still unused. 
The
two /21's are in whois as still being assigned to me even though I have
repeatedly asked to have it changed. I have a customer that has 2 - /24's 
and a /23,
similar thing same large provider. The large providers that have allowed the
whois to get stale will be able to meet their IPV4 needs for awhile
by reclaiming assigned and unused space. I think it was just easier to get
new than keep track and reclaim old space rather than some evil plan but
I know it's out there in great number.

> 
> -Dave 
> ---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
>From: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at ipinc.net>
> Date:  Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:38:05 -0700
> 
>>Hi Dave,
>>
>>   Well, I think there is a lot of small space like this.  To give you 
>>an example take subnet 199.248.255.0/24, this was a direct assignment to
>>Leatherman Tools, which was a customer of ours over a decade ago.  They 
>>stopped using that space around 1999 but it was still routed to us.  I
>>used it periodically up until 2004 until we got our /19, but of course I
>>could not trade it in since we didn't own it.  I did mention it to the
>>ARIN hostmaster at that time.  So it's been abandonded for 6 years as 
>>well.   The last change on it's POC was from our former
>>admin who applied his e-mail address for his new employer to it (for 
>>some odd reason) but his new employer went bankrupt - and a domain 
>>speculator now has the POC e-mail address.
>>
>>   Presumably, when ARIN fully has Section 3.6.1 of the NRPM implemented
>>the domain speculator who has the domain on the POC will fail to respond 
>>to the annual POC notification e-mail, and eventually ARIN will
>>notice the POC record is invalid.  At that time they might paper-mail
>>Leatherman Tools which is still a going concern, and still at the
>>address in the POC to confirm the POC.  ARIN does have the option
>>under the NRPM of marking the POC "completely and permanently abandoned 
>>or otherwise illegitimate"
>>but I don't know if they have developed an internal process yet to
>>make such designations or whether such a process includes phone calls
>>or paper mails or other mechanisms (like querying a looking glass, etc.)
>>Almost certainly such an internal process will prioritize the
>>invalid POC's tied to the largest allocations first.
>>
>>But you can imagine what would happen even if ARIN were to paper-mail
>>Leatherman Tools on this one.  Most likely the admin at
>>Leatherman will not know what the heck the paper-mail is about and
>>will wrongly assume they are still using that subnet - and tell
>>ARIN not to do anything about it.  So that subnet will remain tied up,
>>virtually forever, or at least until Leatherman Tools goes out of
>>business, which isn't likely.  It would take a 20-minute phone call from
>>the ARIN hostmaster to the head MIS admin at Leatherman Tools to
>>explain what is going on and get permission to take back this
>>legacy resource, and that's only if the guy at Leatherman is clueful.
>>
>>   Now, the interesting thing here is that in
>>the 3-4 minutes that it took for you to read this and comprehend it, the 
>>global RIR's have probably assigned 10 times the amount of IPv4
>>space.  In other words, it's likely that it would NEVER be 
>>cost-effective for ARIN to recover this space and reallocate it.
>>So ARIN probably will never get around to deeming this particular
>>/24 "permanently abandoned"  Hopefully though at least it eventually
>>will be marked unresponsive.  The truth is that this particular subnet
>>is my "canary in the coal mine" since I know it's history and I know
>>it should be marked unresponsive, when I see that happen I'll know
>>ARIN is implementing 3.6.1 fully.
>>
>>   Keep in mind that Section 3.6.1 requires ARIN to publish a list of
>>invalid POCS, so we should have in a year or two a list of subnets
>>that are "ripe for mining" as they say.  I think that most of the
>>community believes that there isn't a lot of this space out
>>there.  I would also predict that if ARIN comes back with the
>>equivalent of 5-10 /8's worth of "invalid POC" space that there
>>will quickly be support for further IPv4 reclamation activities.
>>
>>Ted
>>
>>
>>On 7/12/2010 10:49 AM, Dave Feuer wrote:
>>> While cleaning up some old DNS records (again) I took a look at some of 
>>>our
>>> old address space. 2  x /23s from 2 providers. I did a quick whois and 
>>>both
>>> are still pointing to us. One we have not used since early 2001 the other
>>> since late 2004. I did some tests and one of them still routes to the last
>>> hop before it hit us.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Then I took a look at the records for a client with a /22 that we managed
>>> the DNS for. I don't know how long he has not had the IP space but it's 
>>>been
>>> at least 3 years and more likely closer to or over 4 years. Still pointing
>>> to him (and his company no longer even exists) and still routing to the 
>>>last
>>> hop before him.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> How much space is out there and routed and going no place? Is there any 
>>>way
>>> to find out? It's more of a question to satisfy my curiosity but I think 
>>>it
>>> would be interesting to know.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -Dave
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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> 
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Larry Ash
Network Administrator
Mountain West Telephone
123 W 1st St.
Casper, WY 82601
Office 307 233-8387