RE: Question on 7.0.0.0/8

[<michael.dillon () bt com>]

> Is it just me or does all of this have the odor of 
> amateur hour around it? Inconsistencies between 
> the various databases, IANA can't make 
> http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space 
> such that it's unambiguously parsable, ARIN backdates 
> some of the address space it gives out, RIPE used to 
> register address space under "UK" while that's not a 
> valid country code (they fixed that last year, though), and so on.

Yes, I agree that it seems amateurish. I think that about 10 years ago a
lot of people became satisfied with the status quo and the technology of
IANA and the RIRs stagnated. The world moved on around them but you
still see things like IANA's non-parseable text file and ARIN's SWIP
system using text templates in email messages. RIPE is not that far
ahead either, although they have made a bit of effort.

As a result, most people consider William Leibzon and the Bogon project
to be, collectively, the authoritative source for information on whose
IP address that is. That's because William and the Bogon project, act
authoritative, and take some pains to provide comprehensive data. At the
same time, IANA and the RIRs just keep doing the same old thing as their
data and systems slowly rot away. Anyone who has ever had to deal with
data cleansing in a corporate environment knows what I mean about data
rot. Systems similarly degrade when the world around them changes. For
instance, in Victorian times a wonderful home cleaning device was
invented called a vacuum cleaner. It worked like a modern pool vacuum in
that you pumped the handle to produce suction. It was an amazing device
that could clean the dust out of rugs without hauling them outside,
hanging them up and beating them. In todays world it is a quaint museum
piece because electricity is now ubiquitous. But the device still works
today as well as it did in Victorian times. That is how systems degrade.

Why doesn't IANA operate a whois server?

Why don't they publish a more detailled explanation field in each IANA
allocation record so that they can explain the precise status of each
block?

Why doesn't IANA and the RIRs collectively get off their butts and
actually make an "authoritative IP address allocation directory" one of
their goals?

And why don't they do all this with some 21st century technology?

--Michael Dillon