Microsoft spends $7.5m on IP addresses It’s official, IP addresses are now more expensive than domain names. Nortel Networks, the bankrupt networking hardware vendor, has sold 666,624 IPv4 addresses to Microsoft for $7.5m, according to Delaware bankruptcy court documents (pdf). That’s $11.25 per address, more than you’d expect to pay for a .com domain name. …
Authorities differ (if that's what they are). I believe it's generally assumed amongst scholars that the bible number-of-the-beast is supposed to numerologically correspond to "EMPEROR NERO OF ROME" or something like that, but no one knows who for sure, but actually most likely him, although if so then subsequent events make Revelation look less like inspired prophecy and more like schizophrenic ravings. Funny, that. You know - I haven't knowingly corresponded online recently with any actual lunatics (and I don't go looking for them, except as see below for instance), but when I did from time to time, the people who have glowing shining eyes and are up to something were a recurring theme. Browse through Revelation? Check.
There are more exciteable views, such as, via Google: "Revelation 13:18 says 'the number of the Beast ... is the number of a man and his number is six hundred threescore and six.' 6+6+6=18, the number of letters in Barack Hussein Obama, who has represented Chicago's 60606 zip code."
Elsewhere I am told that the "English gematria" calculation, which I haven't tested, produces 666 from "Sarah L. Palin", which does however suggest that she doesn't turn out to be The Whore Of Babylon, anyway. I suspect the information is not offered seriously on this occasion, unless as a rebuttal of those pesky "Obama is the Beast from the Pit/the Sea" claims that just don't go away, birth certificate or not. (Hawaii? Hmm. Volcanic...)
Nortel/BNR was allocated the 47.x.x.x Class A address space back in the early days. For the last couple of years they have been looking for how to monetize the asset (long before the bankrupcy), but it only now that v4 addresses are valuble enough for someone to go to the bother of buying them.
Fundamental IP understanding fail - IPv4 addresses are routed by BGP and a /24 is the minimum you can route. Also every range needs to be configured (generally) with the ISP and via the likes of RIPE.
So you can't give away IPv4 addresses you have to set them up properly, way beyond the ability of muggles with printers
Just being pedantic.
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666624 would probably represent 10 Class B network ranges and 44 Class C network ranges which were mostly acquired through mergers and acquisitions. I suspect that the addresses sold to Microsoft do not include any of the the entire 47.X.Y.Z Class A range (16,777,216 unique addresses) that @Simon - 47/8 alluded to. Still more monetization to go!!
Please bear in mind that the transfer has not happened yet.
"The parties have requested approval of a sale order from the Bankruptcy judge. There is a timeline for making filings and a hearing date. There is not an approved sale order at this time, [...]"
http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2011/3/23/4778509.html#1426588
Pah! Small change! Wait until the gov buys a couple dozen IP addresses for £10M, followed by a £1M 5 pages report by an "expert" concluding that they got a good deal. I can even forecast the name of the expert report: "Internet Pages (IP): why the price it was good".
I heard a lot of assumptions around here about the origin of this number. Let me assure you that you are all incorrect and that the only real reason is as follow. Microsoft originally requested 666,666 addresses because that's their lucky number, the number which drives all their business decisions. For example, did you know that at some point in time, every single version of Windows sold 666,666 copies?
However, they had to substitute 42, which I won't bother explaining since it's the solution to everything. I could dig out the exact answer as of why it's 42, but it'll take 7.5M years.
IP addresses aren't owned, they are assigned. ICANN should pull the rug from under MS and Nortel, and reclaim these IP addresses. They aren't an asset of Nortel, they are an asset of ICANN.
Similar reclamations should happen for all the other large unused blocks that were mis-allocated in the 80s/90s. No university or company needs a class A for gods sake.
In the UK, car registration numbers aren't owned either: they're assigned by the DVLA. But it hasn't stopped a thriving industry for the sale and transfer of them. In fact the DVLA themselves make quite a bit out of selling certain combinations too.
Perhaps ICANN could introduce a 'use it or lose it' policy for those class A addresses. Who really has 16.7 million publicly accessible devices?
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