[linsomniac]

I worked for HP back in the late '80s/early '90s, and it always seemed insane that they numbered everything internally with their 15.*/8 block, especially as you weren't even allowed out on the public Internet at the time. You had to get a manager to sign a paper to get access to a SOCKS proxy.

[neurostimulant]

Same thing happen in my university. When I was graduated 10 years ago, they were using their ip block for their internal network, which can't even connect to the internet without a squid proxy. My wife did her master degree there last year and they were still doing it. I can't help but think how wasteful it is. Is there any benefit of doing that anyway, except due to legacy baggage?

[wmf]

This is how the Internet is supposed to work, with unique addresses.

[linsomniac]

Why? If you have a private network, like HP did, why would you want public IPs on it?

[wmf]

A big reason is mergers (something HP has a lot of experience with); merging two 10/8 networks is a mess but if they have unique IPs it's easier.

Also, I think the concept of a "private network" is inflexible and in some sense a premature optimization. If you use unique IPs you can decide on a subnet or even host basis what is exposed to the Internet and what isn't.

[linsomniac]

Ok, I'm sold! Where can I get 8 /24s to use in at my (small) work? :-)

[wmf]

https://auctions.ipv4.global/