Oddly enough, while the DWP's class A address range is used internally, in all written communications the leading octet of such IP addresses must be redacted for "security" reasons, despite being (a) a matter of public record, and therefore (b) displayed on the xkcd map of the IPv4 address space (as "UK Social Security").<p><a href="https://xkcd.com/195/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/195/</a>
For anyone interested the block that has been sold is 51.174.0.0/15. The remainder of 51.0.0.0/8 still belongs to the Department of Work and Pensions though none of it is publically routable.
This is interesting in that if IP addresses are allowed to trade freely (currently 4 quid per IP), I'd argue that we'll never run out of them. And this whole transition to IPv6 may never be necessary.
Is there any way to purchase IPv4 addresses as an investor? It seems like they will be an appreciating asset over the next few years, if you are willing to make the gamble that IPv6 adoption will be on a longer timeframe, rather than a shorter timeframe
I didn't think that RIPE let you sell off IP address space, given that RIPE 'owns' the actual addresses and just allocates them to members. Has the govt effectively 'sold' these addresses in the same way that my ISP has 'sold' me a static IP address on my DSL connection?<p>How can the buyers do anything useful with these addresses given that they'll still be tied to the original ASN through RIPE?