the rhadamanthine IP range

is APNIC just weird?

[lucy24]

I was this close to posting the question in one of the grownup forums, but... Naah.

So I'm poking around various Asian ranges in hopes of filling some gaps. (Yes, WhoIs, I'm still a carbon-based lifeform. At least, I hope so.) And there's this pattern I keep meeting. Goes like this:

aa.bb.0 some country
aa.bb.1 some other country
aa.bb.2-3 another country
aa.bb.4-7 still another country
aa.bb.8-15 some random country
aa.bb.16-31
... et cetera up to
aa.bb.128-255 Thailand
OK, it isn't always Thailand, but surprisingly often. There is no relationship between the size of the range and the size and/or importance of the country.

What gives? Is there some historical explanation, or are they just doing it to annoy us?

There's a variation in which the numbers break down the same way, but all the countries are China-- except one of the lowest ranges (..0 or ..1 or ..2-3), which is either allocated to Australian Experimental Thingummy Whose Name I Forget, or sublet to some other country that isn't actually using it.

If there is an explanation other than

They only do it to annoy
Because they know it teases.

I would love to hear it.

[jmccormac]

Evolution of the web/internet and the time at which the internet became mainstream would have had an effect on the IP delegations. That generally explains most of the delegations. However there are also academics involved and state telcos.

Regards...jmcc

[Staffa]

Before 2010 the GeoIP database used to be 1.5 MB in size and most IP ranges would be like nnn.0.0.0 - nnn.255.255.255 with a few broken up ones in between. Then at the start of 2010 it all got broken up into splinter ranges like you describe and the same file is now 10.8 MB with 173,415 individual ranges.

One range (184. or 194.b.c.d if I remember correctly) was split into 9,4nn little groups.

If you download the csv file from maxmind dot com you'll have all the ranges and see what I mean.

[lucy24]

Heh. That's not even getting into the de facto locations like

:: shuffling papers ::

  0-3 65.181.43.0/30 Arctic Bay
  4-7 65.181.43.4/30 Chesterfield Inlet
 8-15 65.181.43.16/29 Arviat
16-23 65.181.43.16/29 Baker Lake
24-31 65.181.43.24/29 Cambridge Bay
32-35 65.181.43.32/30 Clyde River
36-39 65.181.43.36/30 Coral Harbour
40-43 65.181.43.40/30 Gjoa Haven
44-47 65.181.43.44/30 Grise Fiord
48-51 65.181.43.48/30 Hall Beach

... (and so on, winding up with)

116-119 65.181.43.116/30 Taloyoak
120-127 65.181.43.120/29 Whale Cove

On paper they're all Yellowknife (65.181.32.0/20), which doesn't do me a fat lot of good. No, I don't know why Chesterfield Inlet is out of alphabetical order. I looked up 65.181.16.0/20-- which turned out to be 65.176.0.0/14 plus 65.180 plus 65.181.0.0/19 (who do they think they are, Comcast?)-- and 65.181.48.0/20. But that's just for appearance's sake.

[jmccormac]

Perhaps some IP ranges and their delegation may be associated with the old VPOPs for ISPs. (Virtual Point of Presence). The local exchanges or VPOPs used to have a group of IPs associated with them and these would form a pool of IPs for customers. The problem, from a geographical point of view (especially in Ireland) was that one VPOP could be serving a phone code area that could cover a number of geographical counties or areas.

Regards...jmcc