AS path geeks: At the risk of invoking ire and eliciting comparisons to the widely-reviled and growing practice of selling IPv4 addresses, I'm wondering if anyone has sold legacy AS numbers for quick cash. For example, NASA has AS23 among others, and does not use 23. Could they help fund a Mars mission study or two by offering it to the highest bidder? Or would they be lucky to top the $500 ARIN charges for a 32-bit ASN? How about AS1? Level3 uses a different AS. There's one nonpaying customer advertised from AS1, and despite their historical involvement creating the first predecessor of the internet, I bet DoD Network Information Center would be willing to use a different AS for the single prefix advertised by 1 now, if Level3 asked them nicely. Is Level3 leaving money on the table? I looked a bit for any transfer or change policy that might apply without success. Given these are legacy assignments, I have a feeling the POC could be changed without merger or acquisition, and I bet the AS descriptive name could be as well. I know I'd personally find a low AS number worth a pretty penny, if I could find a willing seller. I recognize there's no practical shortage of AS numbers. BGP's preference for low AS numbers doesn't come into play much. On the other hand, a low AS number can't hurt at the human level when negotiating peering or attracting customers. Cheers, Dave Hart
Hi Dave, On 17.11.2011 15:53, Dave Hart wrote:
I recognize there's no practical shortage of AS numbers. BGP's preference for low AS numbers doesn't come into play much. On the other hand, a low AS number can't hurt at the human level when negotiating peering or attracting customers. Could you explain, what you mean with "BGP's preference for low AS numbers".
Sebastian
In a message written on Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 02:53:26PM +0000, Dave Hart wrote:
I recognize there's no practical shortage of AS numbers. BGP's preference for low AS numbers doesn't come into play much. On the other hand, a low AS number can't hurt at the human level when negotiating peering or attracting customers.
I think you are confusing a "low ASN" with a "low router ID", or maybe "low neighbor IP address". For a refresher, see: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk365/technologies_tech_note09186a0080094431... A low ASN has no technical value, as far as I know. Socially perhaps some folks give additional respect/envy to those with low ASN's. There's an old joke in the peering community, ASN < 3 digits, peer with them. ASN with 4 digits, think about peering with them. ASN with 5 digits, forget it. However, I do believe it's just a joke, I'm sure more folks peer with Akamai (20940) than with NASA (24). -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 15:22, Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org> wrote:
In a message written on Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 02:53:26PM +0000, Dave Hart wrote:
I recognize there's no practical shortage of AS numbers. BGP's preference for low AS numbers doesn't come into play much. On the other hand, a low AS number can't hurt at the human level when negotiating peering or attracting customers.
I think you are confusing a "low ASN" with a "low router ID", or maybe "low neighbor IP address".
For a refresher, see: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk365/technologies_tech_note09186a0080094431...
A low ASN has no technical value, as far as I know.
I am exposed! I have never connected to a router that wasn't a looking glass. I am not worthy... I did try to hide that fact by doing a little research. I was fooled by: "Prefer the route learned from the BGP speaker with the numerically lowest BGP identifier" and (mis)interpreted BGP identifier as ASN.
Socially perhaps some folks give additional respect/envy to those with low ASN's. There's an old joke in the peering community, ASN < 3 digits, peer with them. ASN with 4 digits, think about peering with them. ASN with 5 digits, forget it. However, I do believe it's just a joke, I'm sure more folks peer with Akamai (20940) than with NASA (24).
That's both funny and helpful, thanks. Dave Hart
Dave Hart wrote:
AS path geeks:
At the risk of invoking ire and eliciting comparisons to the widely-reviled and growing practice of selling IPv4 addresses, I'm wondering if anyone has sold legacy AS numbers for quick cash.
I have heard first hand stories of folks being offered 5 figures for four digit ASN's in the past (and they did not sell btw). That was before ARIN started recycling unused short ASN's two years ago. There was a three month period in 2009 where almost every ASN assigned by ARIN was < 10000 as they burned through the backlog. - Kevin
Besides standing at the water cooler at 1:23PM on 12/3 telling AS123 jokes I'm not sure a particular AS number has any relevance or any monetary value unless there is scarcity. 2011/11/17 Kevin Loch <kloch@kl.net>
Dave Hart wrote:
AS path geeks:
At the risk of invoking ire and eliciting comparisons to the widely-reviled and growing practice of selling IPv4 addresses, I'm wondering if anyone has sold legacy AS numbers for quick cash.
I have heard first hand stories of folks being offered 5 figures for four digit ASN's in the past (and they did not sell btw). That was before ARIN started recycling unused short ASN's two years ago. There was a three month period in 2009 where almost every ASN assigned by ARIN was < 10000 as they burned through the backlog.
- Kevin
On Nov 17, 2011, at 8:16 AM, Keegan Holley wrote:
Besides standing at the water cooler at 1:23PM on 12/3 telling AS123 jokes I'm not sure a particular AS number has any relevance or any monetary value unless there is scarcity.
You are discounting (pun intended) vanity and marketing. I am no longer surprised at what people will be willing to pay (sometimes astonishing amounts of) money for. Regards, -drc
At 10:21 17/11/2011 -0800, David Conrad wrote:
On Nov 17, 2011, at 8:16 AM, Keegan Holley wrote:
Besides standing at the water cooler at 1:23PM on 12/3 telling AS123 jokes I'm not sure a particular AS number has any relevance or any monetary value unless there is scarcity.
You are discounting (pun intended) vanity and marketing. I am no longer surprised at what people will be willing to pay (sometimes astonishing amounts of) money for.
AS-envy. -Hank
2011/11/17 David Conrad <drc@virtualized.org>
On Nov 17, 2011, at 8:16 AM, Keegan Holley wrote:
Besides standing at the water cooler at 1:23PM on 12/3 telling AS123 jokes I'm not sure a particular AS number has any relevance or any monetary value unless there is scarcity.
You are discounting (pun intended) vanity and marketing. I am no longer surprised at what people will be willing to pay (sometimes astonishing amounts of) money for.
I suppose I can't argue with that, but anyone technical enough to know what an AS is should know better. Also, would it really count? What if I opened a small ISP in some carrier hotel and paid 1000 bucks for AS 1. I'm not sure I'd want to sign a contract with someone dumb enough to think I was the first company on the internet.
</lurk> Since AS1 (BBNPLANET) was bought for around 666 million way back when, as I recall.. your 1k purchase would be -outstanding-. <lurk> On 11/17/2011 01:55 PM, Keegan Holley wrote:
2011/11/17 David Conrad<drc@virtualized.org>
On Nov 17, 2011, at 8:16 AM, Keegan Holley wrote:
Besides standing at the water cooler at 1:23PM on 12/3 telling AS123 jokes I'm not sure a particular AS number has any relevance or any monetary value unless there is scarcity. You are discounting (pun intended) vanity and marketing. I am no longer surprised at what people will be willing to pay (sometimes astonishing amounts of) money for.
I suppose I can't argue with that, but anyone technical enough to know what an AS is should know better. Also, would it really count? What if I opened a small ISP in some carrier hotel and paid 1000 bucks for AS 1. I'm not sure I'd want to sign a contract with someone dumb enough to think I was the first company on the internet.
On Nov 17, 2011, at 10:55 AM, Keegan Holley wrote:
You are discounting (pun intended) vanity and marketing. I am no longer surprised at what people will be willing to pay (sometimes astonishing amounts of) money for.
I suppose I can't argue with that, but anyone technical enough to know what an AS is should know better.
whois -h whois.arin.net 42 :-) (no idea if any money changed hands) Regards, -drc
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 19:08, David Conrad <drc@virtualized.org> wrote:
whois -h whois.arin.net 42
RFC 943: 42 THINK-AS [BJN1] [BJN1] Bruce Nemnich TMC BJN@MIT-MC.ARPA I have no idea which registry was maintaining AS number registrations when AS42 changed hands. I suppose it's possible the current registrant acquired or merged with whatever entity THINK refers to, but I doubt it, so it seems likely at least at one time transfers were reflected in updated registrations. I bet Douglas would have been tickled. Cheers, Dave Hart
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 07:30:17PM +0000, Dave Hart wrote:
42 THINK-AS [BJN1]
[BJN1] Bruce Nemnich TMC BJN@MIT-MC.ARPA
I have no idea which registry was maintaining AS number registrations when AS42 changed hands. I suppose it's possible the current registrant acquired or merged with whatever entity THINK refers to,
"THINK", "TMC" and MIT give strong hints towards Thinking Machines Corporation, a once-famous vendor of pretty supercomputers. :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_Machines_Corporation Best regards, Daniel -- CLUE-RIPE -- Jabber: dr@cluenet.de -- dr@IRCnet -- PGP: 0xA85C8AA0
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_Machines_Corporation Assets acquired by Sun Microsystems do maybe Oracle today. -b Sent from my iPhone On Nov 17, 2011, at 14:30, Dave Hart <davehart@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 19:08, David Conrad <drc@virtualized.org> wrote:
whois -h whois.arin.net 42
RFC 943:
42 THINK-AS [BJN1]
[BJN1] Bruce Nemnich TMC BJN@MIT-MC.ARPA
I have no idea which registry was maintaining AS number registrations when AS42 changed hands. I suppose it's possible the current registrant acquired or merged with whatever entity THINK refers to, but I doubt it, so it seems likely at least at one time transfers were reflected in updated registrations.
I bet Douglas would have been tickled.
Cheers, Dave Hart
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Hart" <davehart@gmail.com>
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 19:08, David Conrad <drc@virtualized.org> wrote:
whois -h whois.arin.net 42
RFC 943:
42 THINK-AS [BJN1]
[BJN1] Bruce Nemnich TMC BJN@MIT-MC.ARPA
I have no idea which registry was maintaining AS number registrations when AS42 changed hands. I suppose it's possible the current registrant acquired or merged with whatever entity THINK refers to, but I doubt it, so it seems likely at least at one time transfers were reflected in updated registrations.
I'd be shocked, shocked I tell... oh, yes; put the money over here please. Shocked, I tell you, if that wasn't Thinking Machines Corp., which was formed by MIT grads, as I remember it. The real question is whether it was issued after HHGTTG. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
The real question is whether it was issued after HHGTTG.
HHGTTG first appeared on the BBC in 1978. Thinking Machines Corporation was formed in 1982. As far as I can tell the first BGP RFC is 1105 and was published in 1989. -- Jeff Ollie
Jeffrey Ollie <jeff@ocjtech.us> writes:
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
The real question is whether it was issued after HHGTTG.
HHGTTG first appeared on the BBC in 1978. Thinking Machines Corporation was formed in 1982. As far as I can tell the first BGP RFC is 1105 and was published in 1989.
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Robert E. Seastrom <rs@seastrom.com> wrote:
Jeffrey Ollie <jeff@ocjtech.us> writes:
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
The real question is whether it was issued after HHGTTG.
HHGTTG first appeared on the BBC in 1978. Thinking Machines Corporation was formed in 1982. As far as I can tell the first BGP RFC is 1105 and was published in 1989.
Which describes EGP and was published in 1982. EGP does use the notion of an autonomous system number. When the conversion from EGP to BGP was made did networks keep the same autonomous system numbers? -- Jeff Ollie
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 21:11, Robert E. Seastrom <rs@seastrom.com> wrote:
Jeffrey Ollie <jeff@ocjtech.us> writes:
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
The real question is whether it was issued after HHGTTG.
HHGTTG first appeared on the BBC in 1978. Thinking Machines Corporation was formed in 1982. As far as I can tell the first BGP RFC is 1105 and was published in 1989.
AS42 was assigned after publication of RFC 923 (Oct 1984) and no later than the superceding RFC 943 (April 1985). AS numbers definitely predate BGP. AS1 was assigned by or before RFC 820 (Jan 1983). EGP was RFC 827 (Oct 1982). Presumably the development involved informal assignment of at least test AS numbers. Cheers, Dave Hart
From nanog-bounces+bonomi=mail.r-bonomi.com@nanog.org Thu Nov 17 14:53:57 2011 Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:52:33 -0500 (EST) From: Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> To: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Re: economic value of low AS numbers
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Hart" <davehart@gmail.com>
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 19:08, David Conrad <drc@virtualized.org> wrote:
whois -h whois.arin.net 42
RFC 943:
42 THINK-AS [BJN1]
[BJN1] Bruce Nemnich TMC BJN@MIT-MC.ARPA
I have no idea which registry was maintaining AS number registrations when AS42 changed hands. I suppose it's possible the current registrant acquired or merged with whatever entity THINK refers to, but I doubt it, so it seems likely at least at one time transfers were reflected in updated registrations.
I'd be shocked, shocked I tell... oh, yes; put the money over here please.
Shocked, I tell you, if that wasn't Thinking Machines Corp., which was formed by MIT grads, as I remember it.
The real question is whether it was issued after HHGTTG.
I think it was abaout the time they clustered a group of nine 6-node machines.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Bonomi" <bonomi@mail.r-bonomi.com>
42 THINK-AS [BJN1]
The real question is whether it was issued after HHGTTG.
I think it was abaout the time they clustered a group of nine 6-node machines.
As long as they worked in base-13. As it happens, Woody owns that ASN now, according to my whois, at least. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 18:55, Keegan Holley <keegan.holley@sungard.com> wrote:
I suppose I can't argue with that, but anyone technical enough to know what an AS is should know better. Also, would it really count? What if I opened a small ISP in some carrier hotel and paid 1000 bucks for AS 1. I'm not sure I'd want to sign a contract with someone dumb enough to think I was the first company on the internet.
Did you intend to say the first autonomous system number assigned for use on ARPAnet? Pedantically yours, Dave Hart
2011/11/17 Dave Hart <davehart@gmail.com>
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 18:55, Keegan Holley <keegan.holley@sungard.com> wrote:
I suppose I can't argue with that, but anyone technical enough to know what an AS is should know better. Also, would it really count? What if I opened a small ISP in some carrier hotel and paid 1000 bucks for AS 1. I'm not sure I'd want to sign a contract with someone dumb enough to think I was the first company on the internet.
Did you intend to say the first autonomous system number assigned for use on ARPAnet?
Pedantically yours,
I have to admit I wasn't sure. I know ARPAnet predated BGP and EGP I believe so I wasn't sure if there were ASN's then.
On Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:55:46 EST, Keegan Holley said:
I suppose I can't argue with that, but anyone technical enough to know what an AS is should know better. Also, would it really count? What if I opened a small ISP in some carrier hotel and paid 1000 bucks for AS 1. I'm not sure I'd want to sign a contract with someone dumb enough to think I was the first company on the internet.
On the other hand, if you are unable to sign said contract on *very* favorable terms, maybe *you* shouldn't be signing contracts. :)
On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 10:21:59AM -0800, David Conrad wrote:
On Nov 17, 2011, at 8:16 AM, Keegan Holley wrote:
Besides standing at the water cooler at 1:23PM on 12/3 telling AS123 jokes I'm not sure a particular AS number has any relevance or any monetary value unless there is scarcity.
You are discounting (pun intended) vanity and marketing. I am no longer surprised at what people will be willing to pay (sometimes astonishing amounts of) money for.
UAE license plate auctions, "1" sold for $14 million http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aJ8EZTdrItjs Lebanon phone number auction, 71-444444 went for $68,000 http://www.ameinfo.com/207677.html -- [ Jim Mercer Reptilian Research jim@reptiles.org +1 416 410-5633 ] [ stressed spelled backwards is desserts. ] [ coincidence? i think not. ]
On Nov 17, 2011, at 6:53 AM, Dave Hart wrote:
AS path geeks:
At the risk of invoking ire and eliciting comparisons to the widely-reviled and growing practice of selling IPv4 addresses, I'm wondering if anyone has sold legacy AS numbers for quick cash.
For example, NASA has AS23 among others, and does not use 23. Could they help fund a Mars mission study or two by offering it to the highest bidder? Or would they be lucky to top the $500 ARIN charges for a 32-bit ASN?
ARIN also charges $500 for 16 bit ASNs and still has those available.
I recognize there's no practical shortage of AS numbers. BGP's preference for low AS numbers doesn't come into play much. On the other hand, a low AS number can't hurt at the human level when negotiating peering or attracting customers.
ARIN policy does not currently support the transfer of AS numbers in this manner. IMHO, it shouldn't, but, there is a policy proposal to do so. I suggest that anyone interested in this subject review the proposal and join the discussion on arin-ppml. Owen (Speaking only for myself and not on behalf of the ARIN AC)
participants (17)
-
Barry Shein -
Daniel Roesen -
Dave Hart -
David Conrad -
Hank Nussbacher -
Jay Ashworth -
Jeffrey Ollie -
Jim Mercer -
Keegan Holley -
Kevin Loch -
Leo Bicknell -
Owen DeLong -
Richard Irving -
Robert Bonomi -
Robert E. Seastrom -
Sebastian Spies -
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