<div dir="ltr">Joe,<div><br></div><div>The ends don't always justify the means. The reason there is a policy proposal in the ARIN region to stop this practice is because not everyone covered by these /12 announcements is happy that their addresses were part of an experiment. There is a belief that Merit should have had permission from the entities who had allocations out of these aggregates before announcing a prefix that included them. Note also that this is called a darknet project but these networks were NOT dark. They were live production IPv6 deployments around the world. This is not the same as announcing an IPv4 /8 that has nothing assigned out of it to see who is using it who shouldn't be. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Thanks!</div><div>----Cathy</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Joe St Sauver <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:joe@oregon.uoregon.edu" target="_blank">joe@oregon.uoregon.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi,<br>
<br>
John Curran commented:<br>
<br>
#We were asked to cooperate with Merit on darknet research on ARIN's IPv6<br>
#2600::/12 space and I authorized the effort. Apparently, the effort also<br>
#included the routing an overall covering prefix and I missed that aspect<br>
#of the project. Aside from the technical concerns outlined here, there<br>
#is also a very valid question of whether ARIN should ever be involved in<br>
#routing authorization covering already issued space, since presumably the<br>
#same dialogue and consensus in the operator community (that should be a<br>
#prerequisite for such an experiment) should also suffice as the approval<br>
#with ISPs when it comes to researchers actually inserting the necessary<br>
#routes.<br>
#<br>
#Going forward, ARIN will not issue routing authorization that covers any<br>
#address space issued to others without community-developed policy that<br>
#specifically directs us to do so.<br>
<br>
In mid-December 2013 I highlighted this very Merit darknet project in<br>
a keynote I did for Merit Networks Networking Summit in Ann Arbor, see<br>
"Networking in These Crazy Days: Stay Calm, Get Secure, and Get Involved,"<br>
<a href="http://pages.uoregon.edu/joe/merit-networking/merit-networking.pdf" target="_blank">http://pages.uoregon.edu/joe/merit-networking/merit-networking.pdf</a><br>
at slide 28.<br>
<br>
I think that the Merit IPv6 darknet project was *very* important in helping<br>
to promote uptake of IPv6 in that it provides empirical evidence that the<br>
level of "background radiation" in IPv6 space isn't very high right now<br>
(roughly ~1Mbps), and what is there is typically the result of<br>
misconfiguration rather than malicious scanning (or at least that's what<br>
was reported in the Merit technical paper summarizing that experience,<br>
as cited in my slides).<br>
<br>
Moreover, given BGP route selection rules, I'm not particularly disturbed<br>
by the presence of that covering announcement: any more specific route should<br>
immediately be preferred to a broad covering route of the sort employed by<br>
the IPv6 darknet research effort.<br>
<br>
I believe that ARIN acted properly in supporting this network research, and<br>
I'd be quite disappointed if ARIN (and other RIRs) discontinued support for<br>
research of this sort, particularly when carefully done by leading academic<br>
networking research organizations.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<br>
Joe St Sauver, Ph.D. (<a href="mailto:joe@oregon.uoregon.edu">joe@oregon.uoregon.edu</a>)<br>
<br>
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the Merit Darknet effort, and all<br>
opinions expressed in this note are purely my own.<br>
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