[GTALUG] Linux Kernel Allows 0.0.0.0/8 as a Valid Address Range

[Russell Reiter]

On Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 10:34 AM James Knott via talk, <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:

> On 2019-08-14 10:28 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
> > I don't know the reason for this.
>
> The motive is to squeeze a bit more life out of IPv4, when they should
> be putting the effort into moving to IPv6.  IPv4 hasn't been adequate
> since it became necessary to use NAT to overcome the address shortage.
> This was a hack that caused it's own problems and now we have hacks on
> hacks, to try to keep IPv4 going long after it's best before date.
>

Not to be trite here but "hacks upon hacks," I think that just about sums
up most operating systems built since Bell pulled support for MULTICS. It
was then that Ken Thompson developed his own file and paging systems to
fulfill his desire to write a Space Travel video game.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix

Perhaps the hardest objective in any large scale change, is overcoming the
status quo. For most business's, the operational costs for personnel
training alone could be staggering.  Business is hard wired to defray and
defer costs. That is till necessity rears its head, then they will scream,
shout, scramble and hack.

I'm a operational manual reader, out of both interest and necessity, so I
came across this helpdesk manual for residential ISP's with tests for ipv6
use.

>
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-631

I think that parallel development, for the foreseeable future as the
current literature reflects, is the business watchword of the day.
Ostensibly this is to keep costs down to the minimum.

The last 18 months have posed significant hurdles for IT business's, as
more and more latent defects, or undocumented hashes if you prefer, have
come to light.

It is the nature of science to slowly and deliberately entertain new ideas
which challange the status quo of currently held beliefs. It is the nature
of business to do the same, albeit for different reasons.

Recognizing there is a problem is one thing, fixing systemic industry wide
issues is another thing. From the beginning ipv4 was a DARPA networking
test bed. Who knew at that time that personal home networks would become
the titanic engines of industry that they are today.

As a final thought, often the needs of the developing world are overlooked
by our more developed societies. It could hardly be fair to to those
comnunities, which have gone to the trouble and expense of joining the
connected world to say to them now, all that equipment we juat sold you a
few years ago is obsolete now, you will have to upgrade or lose service.

My 0.2c FWIW

>
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