[HIB]Last IPv4 Addresses May Already Be Cluttered

The few blocks of Internet addresses yet to be allocated under the old IPv4 protocol seem to be home to some "hotspots" of unwanted traffic that anyone who gets the addresses would have to pay for, a researcher said at the North American Network Operators Group conference on Monday. No one can set up a web server on an IP (Internet Protocol) address that hasn't been allocated, but anyone can write code that points to the unused addresses. The unexpected activity found in these "dark spaces" may come from a variety of sources, including both Internet-borne attacks and benign code for testing an application or PC. Though the traffic doesn't represent a security threat itself, an enterprise that acquired the affected addresses from an Internet service provider (ISP) typically would have to pay for the transmission of the irrelevant packets, said Manish Karir, a researcher at Merit Network. Merit is an educational network operator and Internet research center in Michigan.

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