This posting is not too relevant to the NANOG thread, but there are some places where IMHO the record needs to be set straight: Alexander Harrowell wrote:
025/8 Jan 95 UK Ministry of Defense (Updated - Jan 06)
NetRange: 25.0.0.0 <http://25.0.0.0> - 25.255.255.255 <http://25.255.255.255> CIDR: 25.0.0.0/8 <http://25.0.0.0/8> NetName: RSRE-EXP NetHandle: NET-25-0-0-0-1 Parent: NetType: Direct Assignment NameServer: NS1.CS.UCL.AC.UK <http://NS1.CS.UCL.AC.UK> NameServer: RELAY.MOD.UK <http://RELAY.MOD.UK> Comment: RegDate: 1985-01-28 Updated: 2005-09-06
Ah. I think you'll find this is a result of there being some legacy stuff from before the UK NIC, Nominet, was set up in 1996.
I don't recall this being anything to do with Nominet, which has never had any role in IP address allocation, only .uk domain registration.
Before then, the de facto authority was the academics, JANET, working out of the University of London Computer Centre. Hence cs.ucl.ac.uk <http://cs.ucl.ac.uk> getting in there.
The CS dept at University College London was an ARPA/SATNET research site long before the ULCC/JANET production folks had anything to do with IP in the early 90s. I think you'll find the above reference is to do with early research-project collaborations between UCL-CS and the military RSRE.
There are a few domain names in a similar position - post nominet, the .uk zone was reorganised to assign 2LDs like *.gov.uk
Most of the widely-used 2LDs of .uk existed pre-Nominet.
but there were already a few 1LD .uk assignments, notably mod.uk <http://mod.uk> and parliament.uk <http://parliament.uk>. I'm not sure if it's been cleared up who is responsible for them.
These are documented at: http://www.nominet.org.uk/registrants/sld/registrations/ To an "Internet old fart" like me :-), I think this demonstrates the importance of recording for posterity some of what went down in the early days. For those interested, we've been accumulating a series of presentations at UKNOF meetings about UK Internet history from people who were around during at the time, you can find these at: http://www.uknof.org.uk/history.html (might make sense for any follow-up on this to be on another list, e.g. uknof@uknof.org.uk or nom-steer@nic.uk) Keith ISC/UKNOF