techsupporter

> It's the equivalent of doing a WHOIS on someone's personal domain and seeing when they started seriously internetting.

We have a moderately-sized regional network at my employer (that's not an ISP) and I've seen a snide version of this. Our previous Director of IT who also made day-to-day decisions on things like peering would refer to 32-bit ASN holders as "six-digit trash." In his view, anyone who didn't have a 16-bit ASN was virtually not worth talking to. Not for technical reasons like our equipment didn't support the newer ASNs, just that they were Johnny-come-latelys.

He was quite proud of the fact that our employer had and still held a sizeable quantity of legacy, as in pre-RIR, IPv4 address space. I'm fairly sure one of the reasons he quit was because of the decision the board of trustees made to transfer chunks of this space to other entities in our same line of work.

They were /22 I believe. You can still get a single /24 as a new RIPE member, and no waiting at the moment as their IPv4 waiting list is empty.

Texas also has rolling blackouts (and less grid resiliency) and have people already forgotten the catastrophe last winter?

> For what it's worth I get static IPv6 and IPv4 (although of course the IPv4 is a tiny block, only a /27 IIRC whereas I have a /48 of IPv6) but I'm in the UK and with a specialist ISP that cares a lot about this stuff.

Even some of the large ISPs can get it right. I used to have fiber optic service from a large telephone company (starts with "C" ends in "EnturyLink") and could use their account management portal to go and get anything up to a /26, complete with setting up reverse DNS, just by clicking a button and agreeing to a relative pittance of money. I think the /26 was $40 per month and the /28 I had was $10 a couple of years ago. They would give me a static IPv6 /48 for nothing, just a click, and delegate the reverse DNS zone to me. A /56 that was supposedly dynamic but never actually changed was given by default.

The problem seems to be which ISPs want to do what. ISPs run by phone companies seem to think of their networks, and the customer networks attached to them, as actual internetworked networks. ISPs run by video companies seem to think of their networks as extensions of distribution systems for linear television channels.

If you are at all interested in networking, I highly recommend doing this or joining the private DN42 network that's mentioned elsewhere in the thread. Setting this all up and actually seeing your IP addresses respond to pings from a machine halfway around the world is, to me, an amazing feeling.

We aren't going to run out of 32-bit (six digit) ASNs or IPv6 addresses any time soon, so you're not consuming a scarce resource by doing this.

The least expensive way, if you have a networking presence in their service region, is to retain the services of a sponsoring LIR in the RIPE area. For example, Securebit will do it for 60CHF setup and 15CHF per year: https://www.securebit.ch/internet/resources

Snapserv is 150EUR per year but comes with an assigned provider independent IPv6 block: https://snapserv.net/services/ripe/

If you really want to dive into the shark tank of cutthroat sponsoring LIRs, look at this thread on LowEndTalk: https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/160162/the-aio-ip-rela...

You need to show that you will have connectivity through two upstreams to justify receiving an ASN. This is easy to do, pick two providers from bgp.services (or pick one other provider and also list Securebit's tunnelbroker.ch service).

You will also need to show that you have a network presence in the RIPE service area. This is also easy to do, rent an inexpensive dedicated server or a couple of BGP virtual machines in Europe and have a copy of the invoice ready to give to your chosen sponsoring LIR.

Regarding IPv6 blocks, there are two types of IP space assigned from the registries: provider aggregated and provider independent space. The latter is directly assigned to you as an end user for your own use (you can't assign it to customers for their networks, for example). If you have PI space, you can move it from one LIR to another without changing numbers. The free IPv6 space that LIRs and others will lend you is PA space so you can't take those numbers with you. There's no real distinction if you are just learning, but you might want to choose a sponsoring LIR bundle that comes with PI IPv6 space in case you think you might change LIRs and want to keep your existing IP setup.

Oh, one other thing: the provider independent assignments from RIPE are /48, or the smallest IPv6 subnet that can be announced (akin to an IPv4 /24). If you want to announce multiple IPv6 subnets into the global BGP table, you will need a larger allocation, usually from your sponsoring LIR. Every sponsoring LIR I've seen will give you anywhere from a /44 to a /40 for free and that's many /48s for you to play with.

(It's no longer possible to get PI IPv4 space from registries. You'd have to buy it on the open market and it is expensive. You can either buy IPv4 PA space from the open market or you can join RIPE and get a single /24, and both are expensive.)

> It seems from the outside that they’re choosing the latter.

I agree, but I think the reason why is "it won't happen to me" syndrome. Sure, other companies or people might get regulated out of existence, but in the short term maximizing profits and hoping or expecting to see the boulder rolling downhill in time to get out of the way is seen as the better plan. Because if you're right, you get to keep a lot of money. And if you're wrong, well, you don't think you'll be wrong.

This seems to be the thinking of our entire economic system in the United States. Grab as much money as humanly possible, regardless of any future consequences, even if the very act of the grabbing increases the odds of a much worse outcome.

I think you're doing a disservice to the dissenting voices. Sure, some of it is probably jealousy due to missing out in MaSsSiVe GaInZ but I think there's a lot of room to say that something is a bad idea regardless of whether you have a stake in it.

I own some Bitcoin I mined myself in the early days. By luck or stupidity, I lost it for years and then found it in an old backup and now it is worth a number that would afford me a healthy retirement if I could get over my analysis paralysis. But I still think Bitcoin, as it embodies the idea of "crypto currency," is a terrible idea as a store of value, as an impact on our planet's environment, and as financial policy.

I feel the same way about housing policy (I own a house in Seattle), about transportation (I used to own two cars, but now none), about tax policy (I benefit greatly from Washington State having no income tax and relying mostly on flat-rate taxes that don't take up much of my income), and several more. Even though they're personally good for my family and me, they're terrible for the society at large and we have to live in a society so I'd like something better.

So, yeah, I think it's a bit reductive to distill the dissenting voices on HN down to "well, they didn't buy and hodl so they're just grouchy."

> Sears: had Allstate for insurance and Discover Card for credit. Unlike most "branded" credit-cards, Sears did its own underwriting for the Discover Card i.e. they owned the Greentrust bank

This was a fairly common thing to do, as you point out, for department stores. As far as I'm aware, Target was the last holdout department store owning its own bank, Retailers (then Target) National Bank, through which it issued the RedCard and RedCard Visa, and sold to TDBank. Macy's had Department Stores National Bank, which it sold to Citi, and so on.

> I sympathize with the guy who had line-of-sight issues. Or anyone who lives in a multi-unit building, or far from the Big Antennas.

> However...

I don't mean to be uncharitable, but the "however" you wrote is doing a lot of the work here. A lot of people are saying that Locast is pointless or not a big deal because, well, they put up an antenna and it worked so no problem.

Except that it is a problem. I used Locast from the day it became available in Seattle because, try as I might, I could not get reception from all of the TV channels. Standalone house, apartment, low to the ground, high up, didn't matter. There are three broadcasting sites in Puget Sound and the best I could do was 1 reliable, 1 iffy, and 1 not at all.

> Should be easy, right?

Should be, but isn't if you can't get signal. Locast offered that signal (Comcast charges about $19 a month for the privilege of having a plan with just local channels but also charges $19 a month as a broadcast channels surcharge) for a nice donation.

I get unenrolled from electronic statements from Capital One and a local credit union if I go 12 months without “opening” an e-mail from them. I do open and read their e-mails but since I don’t have image loading enabled, they don’t know that so they “helpfully” start sending me paper bills again, and stop sending me the e-mails to say that the bills are ready. It’s incredibly annoying.

> it is a less than ideal solution but that cannot be illegal, right?

First, we don’t know. The law is deliberately written in a vague and obtuse manner precisely to raise these kinds of questions so that everyone will avoid getting the procedure, except for those with the means and cover to not be harmed by the consequences of someone finding out. There’s an open question, for instance, if the driver of a cab taking someone to the airport to board a flight to a state to get an abortion would be deemed “aiding” the person.

Second, even if it isn’t, requiring someone to leave a state to exercise a right is generally considered not good under our federal system. All rights come with limits (exactly what limits are somewhat up for debate when it comes to any particular right) but, in general, current legal standing is that a person has the right to an abortion prior to the fetus’ viability. The states should not be attempting to restrict further than that.

> But I'm not taking the train if travelling by car was faster, that makes no sense.

If you are going purely for minimizing time, all forms of shared transport will be slower than going it alone. A plane trip on a commercial route is slower than getting a private jet, for example.

The difference is in how much additional time the shared option takes, and how the experience varies, especially relative to cost. For an Amtrak cross-country trip measured in days, I agree with you; I won't ride that (outside of the trip being the reason for the trip) either.

But Amtrak Cascades between Seattle and BC or Portland? I'll definitely take the train for that. I go from downtown to downtown in a bit longer than the time to drive, I don't have to deal with the TSA, I don't have to concentrate on driving myself, I can get food and use the restroom without stopping my trip, and I get a much better seat than on a plane.

If the time comparison is within about 50% extra train versus plane or car, I'm taking the train every time.

> It obviously depends on your location/line-of-sight/etc.

And that’s the problem. Virtually everyone who gets Locast, including me, can’t get reliable reception. This is exactly what retransmission non-profits are supposed to help with. But in response to Locast, people say “just put up an antenna.” I would love to but I live in a city of hills and trees that eat RF for breakfast and dinner.

I have paid for Locast since it arrived in my market and I’m immensely sad to see it go.

As I recall, this was seen as a concern in the early days so "privacy extensions" were added to the implementation standard for IPv6. Macintosh, Windows, iOS, and Android all rotate their auto-configured IPv6 addresses at a regular interval. It used to be a day but I think I've seen it as short as an hour: https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2014/12/ipv6-privacy-ad...

Didn't the US government require that all cloud services provided to and by the government be done over IPv4 and IPv6 some time ago?

In opening another tab to answer my own question, I see that they've broadened the scope and that the US government networks should be IPv6-only, with some caveats I'm sure, by 2023: https://fedtechmagazine.com/article/2021/03/how-make-progres...

Meanwhile, Hetzner just added a staggering $19/address setup fee and a soon doubling of prices for IPv4 addresses from them ostensibly due to the rising costs of getting addresses, yet still has virtually no support for IPv6 on their offerings outside of a /64 per dedicated server.

https://docs.hetzner.com/general/others/ipv4-pricing/

> I'm surprised they didn't just start banning customers abusing the service.

One of CondoInternet's advertised selling points before they sold to Wave Broadband is that you could buy the 1Gbps service and do whatever you wanted, including run your own servers.

So it wasn't an abuse of the service. Everyone I knew on CondoInternet would buy the highest speed package so they could run Minecraft and Plex and other servers for their friends. It was like having Speakeasy Internet Services SDSL back again but with 200 times the upload.

> Most likely they are sending SMS from a short-code - and a short-code cannot send SMS to a non mobile number.

Sure you can. We do it all the time at my job, for sending reminders of appointments and medication refill notices and such. We have test recipient numbers on all of the mobile networks and the big VoIP networks like Republic Wireless and Google Voice. I even have a test number from voip.ms on there.

The requirement is that the owning carrier of the number have a partnership with the short code provider platform. Twilio famously doesn't want to pay for that partnership. Bandwidth.com, that operates the bare metal of a lot of VoIP companies, does pay for it.

> and didn't spam you with adverts (also known as "recommendations" now), smarmy cutesy messages

And frame every opt-out choice as "YES I LOVE THIS AND WANT IT TURNED ON FOREVER AND EVER AND NEVER SHOW ME THIS PROMPT EVER AGAIN" versus "sigh fine I guess I don't want it FOR NOW but please make certain to ask me about it nine more times a day for the rest of infinity."

Even the "good" apps like Signal do this.

"Sync your contacts?"

Not now.

"OK we'll ask again later."

> In spite of explicitly setting my default file associations to my preferred applications

And getting griped at by Windows for doing it, too.

"Oh won't you pleeeeeeease consider using the Strongest, Securest, Bestest, Most Wonderfulest Browser Out There, the amazing Microsoft Edge instead of whatever piece of shit blob of code you downloaded from the very untrustworthy dark Interweb?!?"

No, Windows browser team, I want to use Firefox and just like Google pushing their browser on their platform I resent you pushing yours.

We probably will, now that my employer has made noises about allowing remote work from anywhere. My spouse is a citizen of an EU country where my employer has an office so we might just move there.

If the NIMBYs want everybody who wasn't alive the last time housing prices were "cheap" in Seattle to GTFO, I suppose that's the only thing we can do. Because there's no damn way I'm scrimping and saving to pay seven figures to someone whose sole contribution to that property was that they were born before I was and got there first to stand in the way of everyone else.

You know what?

I don't care if the NIMBYs get their feelings hurt. I'm past the point of caring.

Your username says "sea" in it which reminds me of Seattle, where I live. Where, even on the very good salary of a technology industry employee, I am just about priced out of.

How can it be that someone who makes a "modest six figure income," to quote a person running for office in Seattle right now, is continually under the threat of a $3,000-or-more monthly bill to rent a place where a car is not required?

My spouse cannot drive; I strongly prefer not to. Should be easy to find a place where someone can live and be transit-dependent, what with all of this transit expansion projects? Yet, for some inexplicable reason, we're spending billions of dollars to build a mass transit system that is either solely next to a freeway or goes through areas of the city that are next to golf courses and single-family housing.

So, yeah, I don't really care about "preserving something good" when that "good" is turning into a MEDIAN house price of just short of ONE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS and yet neither myself nor another family member--who also works in tech and has a salary that would be monumentally great everywhere in the country except here--can feel secure about the cost of living.

It sucks.

I had this problem repeatedly with both Google and Microsoft, though never at the same time and never, so far as I could tell, for the same reason.

Everything was set up properly. The domains I hosted had IPv4 and IPv6 addresses with forward and reverse DNS matching exactly. SPF was set perfectly, according to multiple test sites. DKIM was always used and always validated, again according to multiple test sites. I even signed up for a DMARC endpoint account at report-uri.com.

Didn't matter. Messages would be spontaneously rejected, sometimes in mid-conversation (this happened to my wife quite a lot). Other times, the remote end would claim to accept the message and then it would disappear into the great bit bucket in the sky. It would be like this for a day or two then spontaneously go back to working.

I finally gave up and switched entirely over to Fastmail awhile back. No more delivery problems, but no more self-hosting my own e-mail, something I'd done for twenty years prior (my domain is older than Mozilla and Google).

Quick question: Why "for Europeans?" I tried from a couple of EU-based endpoints and could access the second link just fine. What error did you get?

I ask because I know the operator of CHS via a friend of a friend kind of thing.

At the time, and perhaps still today but greatly lessened, Microsoft was used to both becoming the victor by crushing the opposition and then staying the victor because no one dared take a second swing. Anyone else who thought about challenging usually thought against and then went and carved out a quiet niche elsewhere.

Besides, nobody got promoted at Microsoft for staying the course and making incremental improvements. Once there were no more balls to be knocked out of the park, developers moved elsewhere to buff up reviews and get bullet points for major projects.

> They own the entire TLD.

Ah, that's the piece I was missing. I get how DNS works but I hadn't fathomed that FreeNom was the root for those TLDs they handle.

Still curious how / if / when they tell you about the thresholds.

Fortunately none of the domains I have registered there are used for anything important but it does hurt if someone does use one they register for something important.

I don't mean to complain, but where are the details? I have two (very low traffic, so likely to never have come close to hitting this) domains at FreeNom because they're the easiest way to register emoji/punycode domains in obscure gTLDs.

How does FreeNom know how much traffic your domain is getting, especially if you've set up your own DNS servers (which you can do on free domains)?

There are no particulars here and I am very curious to know how this popped up.

My whole life, I've heard of those places as either "FunEd" or "The Learning Annex" and I didn't realize until well into adulthood that those were proper nouns, not the generic name for "classes you take as a grownup just for interest."

I remember when there were several providers offering "Pi Colo." I had a Pi at PCextreme in Amsterdam for years before they ended the service. This is pretty clever, I like it.