[Community-Discuss] Blog: A Comprehensive audit of the AFRINIC WHOIS Database

[Owen DeLong]

> On Feb 13, 2021, at 03:58 , Ronald F. Guilmette <rfg at tristatelogic.com> wrote:

> 

> In message <56FF34F4-04C8-48F3-BFC6-699669F55CD2 at delong.com>, 

> Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:

> 

>> There is literally no way to know whether legacy resources are used or not.

>> ...

>> However, unannounced legacy resources are mostly in an unknown state of

>> utilization and it is essentially impossible to determine whether or not

>> they are actually in use.

> 

> I only wish that I had the first clue about what you are going on about

> here Owen.

> 

> If a tree falls in the forest, and if it is not routed on the public

> Internet, then why should I or anybody else give a damn about what

> you do in the privacy of your own intranet?  Your private intranet

> and what you do on it is of no concern whatsoever to the actual

> Internet community.  Nor does the administration of publicly routable

> IP addresses by the various RIRs have any bearing on what you elect

> to do on your own private intranet.


Because private network A with address set A talks to private network B
with address set B who also connects to the public internet using address set B.

If someone on the internet starts using address set A, then B now has a
problem communicating with the public internet user of address set A and the
private network A.

Just because addresses aren’t routed visibly on the public internet does
not mean that they are not used in a manner or application where it is important
for them to remain unique.

RIRs register addresses for uniqueness, not merely for internet routing.

Owen