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Of course they do, but they're still giving a different IP to each device connected, even from wifi. It's thousands of wasted IPs.
Why did an investment company invest in something?
Yes and no. You are of course right. But you are also wrong because history (up to this day) clearly shows that gov. regulators very rarely do the thing that's right; usually they do what money and business wants (note that this is a mere observation and no political criticism).
The other important point is how the tech industry works (not much different from other industries). Most don't seem to know that but the MCU question is not one of a say 5$ MCU vs. a 7$ MCU. Nope, the question very often (in many, many, many devices) is a 15 cents MCU vs. a 50 cents MCU.
This is probably to a large degree due to a misunderstanding which is to consider all those Arduinos and similar (or even the Allwinner or Mediatek based gadgets) as "low end". Well, they are not. They are mid range.
In the real low end (read: in washing machines, vacuum cleaners, etc.) 8 bit, 500 bytes RAM, 4KB ROM is about average. In that market segment - which produces billions of devices annually - it is not unheard of but actually often done to have OTP (one time programmable "ROM") on chip to save yet a cent or two per unit and to also safe another couple of cents in production.
Adding "internet capable!" to such products also is done in a similar way; that functionality is typically added by adding a couple of 100 Bytes of ROM, 48 Bytes more RAM to the MCU and adding the cheapest possible network chip (pref. WiFi. It's cheaper) and routing an extra SPI wire.
As for your "likely 128 bit address (You mean register/internal CPU/MCU bus I guess) width" - forget it. We currently have that at the high end. My guess is that, if at all, the high end MCUs (e.g. Cortex) might get 1 128-bit "SIMD" register that can be marketed as both "IPv6 support" and as "SIMD/Vector"; the latter, well noted just a multiplier/adder capable version. Why? Because that's what we've actually seen. Renesas, for example (major MCU provider in the car industry) has 16-bit MCUs with a 32 bit register for hardware 16 * 16 bit multiplication, adding and barrel shifting (not for internet but mainly related to ADCs).
BTW, as you might be interested: The fact that many cheap gadgets come with only a static admin or other passwords is not that the (usually asian) companies are too stupid. Nope, it's because they are too cheap; a hard wired password costs less in OTP ROM plus less development. Brutal but true. Now think again whether one can really expect them to care anything about "security must be enhanced" - and you know what? It works. It works because there are cheap customers too who buy the cheapest product and dont care about security either.
Actually there's 224.0.0.0/4 and 240.0.0.0/4 where millions of addresses are reserved without much use. That is a waste.
And I've been using 3.0.0.0/8 address on my AWS singapore for a little while. Short and easy to remember IP.
I don't see any reason to take a given resource back from the current owner for free. Suppose you were granted acres of lands from the gov for free for some reason. Can the gov take it back later for free? And how do you know that GE didn't need this? It's very possible they've been using that block but later moved on to NAT to free up the block for sale. How can you take it back when they were still using the block?
Bad example. Land is a tangible, physical resource plus it is a resource that can be, and usually is, linked to real work, real assets, real products.
A better example is a license plate. Typically (in most countries)you might have a chance to "buy" a particular one, say with your initials, but actually what you buy is the right of "early claim" and of choosing rather than getting a random plate.
In any case however, you do not own your license plate number. The state can, and sometimes does for diverse reasons (e.g. changing the scheme) "take away" your plate.
IPs are not like land. Unless an organisation/company actually, inherently, and directly needs many IPs there is no plausible reason and should be no plausible right to have many IPs. And indeed nowadays one must justify ones need in order to get more than hardly a hand full of IPs.
The only group I see who actually, inherently, and directly needs many IPs are ISP, providers, etc. And from what I see nobody even thinks about doubting their need.
Back when these IPs were issued, there was no such thing as RFC 1918 space yet. Even if there was, they didn't want to use space that could potentially be used by suppliers that might cause a conflict. So, big companies requested and were granted their own /8. They use (or used) this for numbering everything (computers, printers, servers, machines, etc).
Now that there is a more significant financial motivation to re-number, some of these companies are re-numbering to RFC 1918 space, switching to IPv6, or both and selling the IPs.
Also, keep in mind also that these IPs are pre-ARIN, so ARIN (or another RIR) can't actually take them back. ARIN has no authority to do so.
How dare you inject both logic and reason into a LET thread!
@qps
Thank you for your post showing another point of view and actually contributing to the discussion!
Reading it though I'm more and more under the impression that many severe mistakes and plunders were made back then.
Example: Any xIR is or is not in charge of certain IP ranges. If they are then they obviously can take administrative actions. If not then one had to ask what they are about anyway.
Afaic I presume that full authority over IP ranges was passed on when changing xIRs. That's just how lawyers tick and what contracts are all about. But I also assume that grave negligence happend back then. I don't mean to accuse those ignorantly throwing around large IP ranges; I understand that back then what today is a problem probably looked as if IPs were all but unlimited.
I however can't but be under the impression that the large corporations, universities, etc. who got /8 - /12 ranges back then are somehow considered untouchable holy cows and that letting them keep their huge ranges seems to be more important to the authorities than providing a fair share to the 99%, the people, who just have to accept IP scarcity (and btw. even providers often have to pick up and work with scraps).
Funny question aside: Who pays for the authorities? That might be an interesting thing to look at.
As qps also mentioned above, IPs were given just like property, and those companies and organizations are considered as the ownership of these IPs. Under your example, it would be someone was granted a license plate from the government even before the DMV department was set up. Then that license plate is no longer under DMV rules, but is a special privilege granted directly by another department and DMV can't just "take away".
If that happens to be true then that was very highly likely illegal (and such void). Simple as that.
Also, as the "well, those are the facts. That's how it was done" argument comes up again and again:
That matters a lot less than many seem to believe. You see, someone might also give his daughter as a property to someone (Yes, things like that do happen) but that has zero legal weight, even if both parties actually did stick to their agreement.
Anyway. Fact is that IPv4 is reaching the limits and that IPv6 still does not have the uptake that was projected and desired. Something has to give.
My personal guess is that we will see more /8 - /16 ranges being given away or sold. The latter, selling, albeit legally questionable seems to be about the compromise everyone (gov., authorities, big players) can live with and that's why I suspect that to be the chosen way to win time. My other guess is that that time will also be used to come up with something more reasonable and less insane than IPv6 or at least a modified "IPv6a" that is more digestible.
these companies also contributed to the development of this early network. individuals and even isps were not connected to this new network at the time these addresses were handed out. large universities, the dod and a bunch of interested companies.
and then it took off.
Absolutely. That's the major reason why I'm quite easy on the DOD. After all Darpa is probably the decisive force in creating what became the internet. Hence (well in my personal opinion) they deserve some slack and special rights. Funnily I presume that the DOD anyway will be one of the major players to relatively early free large IPv4 ranges.
Giving someone's daughter is a bad example. There's no law saying you can't give IP addresses, which are virtual resource by themselves, to someone else. The only thing that says you can't own an IP range is probably in the rules made by RFC and ARIN (or other RIRs) and those rules (or you may say laws) only apply to standard allocations happening after the rules are made.
I'll leave at this point. I'm no lawyer and don't have sufficient knowledge about those legal details to make solid statements. We'll see how things evolve.
Sounds contradicting to me.
If one stands by equal rights on resources, the same rule shall apply to everyone without preferential treatment.
This thread had me upset about my lack of IPV6 , and lo and behold, today morning Airtel 4G starts handing out IPv6.
Finally! Time to go upgrade all my self-hosted apps' hosts to ipv6.
@vimalware I just got NBN the brand new newfangled network here in AU. No IPv6 with TPG, and I moved from a static to a dynamic IP. I guess I won't be with them for much longer.
Hey,
I did not read up here on the latest status and I won't because of time,
but this aspect seems a bit personal-ish, so I'll pick this one out:
Nice one :-)
The problem is not the arguments, the problem is that it is not a sign of a good argumentation, if you repeat yourself over and over again.
And it is always the easiest way to make lots of words. The hard thing is to strip things down to their core. Meaning: less words.
Who said I do not like you?
Generally, I can discuss quite well without disliking people that do not share my point of view.
And even more generally, as I don't know anyone here, there's very few people here I do not like.
Perhaps only @WSS - for disappearing when it was so much fun. Joke.
No. The US government issued these companies the IP addresses as property. It can't be taken away. Not anything that anyone can do about it now.
It can be taken away if someone brave enough dares to sue...
Of course, your chances of winning is slim since US rubles will speak louder than justice but, you can do it, bsdguy.
Do it, for us, for the justice, for the apple in our necks, for the balls between our legs.
This is what it means to be a man. We shall chicken out but encourage you to sue.
If you are cranky about IPv4, the best thing to do is try to encourage faster adoption of IPv6. Either that, or get a big pile of cash and buy your own /8.
Without Darpa we wouldn't have the internet. So, yes, if you want to see it like that, I'm indeed for special rights for the damn inventor and creator of something.
I'm also for Linus having the damn right to behave however he pleases. If some snowflakes don't like that they are free to build their own OS based on whatever they perceive as social justice at any given day.
@southy
I get your point and you are right; it's one valid view to look at it. On the other hand I bring aspects that are widely unseen or even largely unknown to many here, so it makes sense to not be very terse. "How bout dish washers?" would be a cool one liner but probably almost nobody here would understand enough about MCUs and many would not even get that I'm putting them on the table (but rather think "Haha, cool joke").
@qps and others
Again, governments have done and often do things far worse than not caring to stick to old grants, contracts, etc.
Also the fact that a government did something doesn't mean that it's legal and correct. That's one of the reasons for courts, particularly supreme courts to exist.
And again, I will not go deeper into that because my legal knowledge is very limited and I strongly prefer to stay at a level covered by knowledge and expertise. Maybe the day will come when experts at a court will look at it.
GE Stock is hemorrhaging right now, makes sense to sell assets, there cash poor right now.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/general-electric-stock-price-ceo-will-sell-assets-cut-leverage-2018-11-1027717405
LOL, ok. You are going to challenge the legality of the US Government, who created the internet, handing out IP addresses as property back in the early days of the internet. Sounds like a good way to spend your time and money.
No. I neither challenge nor do I question the legality of any government.
I question the legality of one particular action of the government. Maybe it was OK, maybe it wasn't. I can't judge that but the courts can; that's one reason for them to exist. And it's not somehow weird or revolutionary to question the legality of government actions. Actually it happens quite often. What I can do is to state that "the government did it" != "it was legal".
Since they owned the internet at the time, as long as the addresses were assigned consistent with their policy in place at the time, there is no basis for any action. And even if there was a deviation from policy, the statute of limitations has likely run out on the time to file a lawsuit about it, since most of these decisions were roughly 30-40 years ago. Also, good luck finding someone to bankroll your lawsuit, as everyone knows this is a loser.
@qps
Your argument is boiling down to "The gov. did it and so it's OK/legal". That however is untenable. That's one major reason why there is a supreme court. We know for a fact that governments frequently act illegally or with questionable legality (btw. not necessarily with malice).
It's simple. We are both no legal experts. The difference is that I say so openly while you act as if you were the supreme court and just knew for a fact.
And kindly stop your witchhunt and insinuations. I don't need anyone to bankroll my lawsuit because I do not intend to start one - and I did not indicate otherwise. Use arguments and facts instead of trying to paint me as a weirdo doubting the legality of the government or planning to start a lawsuit over those IP ranges. And maybe learn to cope with the fact that people can and often do have different opinions and views. Why would we be here if not to discuss different views and/or to learn about and from them?
Finally, as I've clearly said, my main motivation is not being right no matter the cost. My motivation is largely technical. If all those not really needed or at least not plausibly justified huge IP ranges were freed/returned into the public bucket my professional life and that of many, many others would be much easier and we would have the time needed to come up with a much better long term solution that IPv6.
Before going to the supreme court, one can use common sense. If one created a thing, and that thing is the first being created on the globe, does that one own that thing? Say you write a paper on your own, why would someone ask you to go to the supreme court to prove you didn't illegally own that paper? The US gov funded and created the baby Internet, and thus own the virtual resources until the subject explicitly share or sell those resources to a third party. Do you have to go to the supreme court before you can publish your paper?
Since you are talking about supreme court. Interestingly in the US constitution it specifically protects people's property from being seized. If, unfortunately, those IP ranges are being seized, it would be a very interesting case on the supreme court.
Fortunately, no one has illegally seize the IP ranges from the current owners, yet.
Also, I'd rather think the gov is innocent until proven guilty.
Now, from technical point.
No one predicts the future. Now we have IPv6 that people claims "never exhausted", but who knows what would happen in the next couple years. It could be that we find multi-universes and have to assign each universe a /16 before exhausting the IPv6 addresses. Would you think it reasonable for people 100 years later to blame us for giving /56s and /64s and wasting the space? IMO giving /8s like crap is totally reasonable in those days.
Still remembering the days where 640KB of memory is all we need to do daily work. Who knows we'll be using couple terabytes of memory in our cellphone within the next 30 years?
Debating here changes nothing.
If you want the internet to change? Sue.
They do not need to. Legacy IPs are owned by the company and CANNOT be revoked.
No, MILNIC was military and others were partly public and partly private. See 44/8 which went to a non profit CB org that now gives out space based on callsigns.
This was long before ARIN even was a thought of anyone.
It is called "theft". Simply. If you take them and do not pay the price they want, or they do not want to sell at all, it is and stays theft.
And this space, as you know, is NOT RIR managed, it is first gen legacy.
They did not request a Class A ("/8" now), it was the default alloc size then, private got C, universities B and large corps & gov got A/B.
No, they also got the default alloc.
They are owned by the company. Not by ARIN or anyone other. By the company they are not ALLOCATED to but have been GIVEN to with all rights and no limits. This is property.
This was very legal, obviously, and gov (not only US, many others) supported - again, MILNIC as an example.
Sue.. whom? Again: This IPs are NOT OWNED OR CONTROLLED BY ARIN OR IANA. They are property of the company or person given to. No one can revoke them.
This is not governed by US laws. IANA is special.
Regardless, as said, IANA and ARIN cannot revoke this space, neither can the US gov.