Internet IP address are a commons, they are not property. If you arent using the address, then it should be given to someone who will. The reason we are "running out" (and yes we will eventually run out) at the rate we are is a combination of both growth and waste. Growth is something we are trying to address with IPv6, waste is something we need to address now because the transition is taking longer than expected. And waste is addressed by reallocating netspace from squatters. And I just love the lawyers "little old lady" line, seriously?! As in "This car only had one owner, a little old lady from pasadena".

I'm puzzled as to why ARIN doesnt take these allocations back. Especially something as big as a /8.

The feds tried leading by example, they required all federal agencies to be IPv6 several years ago. When that was revealed to be impossible for the sluggish feds to do, then it was about proving an agency could do it, then that got kinda scaled back to just lab testing (a few agencies did some bigger tests, but most just did lab tests). So its a great idea, but the feds aren't known for being quick or early adopters. In their defense, I think it was a bit premature for them to try this. The support for IPv6 was still lacking in a lot of products, even "new" ones at the time. Plus they have a lot of legacy stuff that in some cases barely supports IPv4, and definitely didnt support IPv6. What might work better would be offer tax incentivies if you want to get businesses moving to IPv6. Right now, there doesnt seem to be much of a rush for the average consume or business.

> If I buy a few million numbers out of a range of several billions when only a few thousand numbers of the entire range are ever going to be used, am I cybersquatting? Yes. > What about if two decades later it turns out everybody was wrong and we ARE using most of the range? Whos we? If you meant, what if your hypothetical is using that entire /8? No, youre not squatting, thats called using. But if you aren't using a /8 then yes, thats about the most obvious case of squatting I can think of. Give it back. But I think like the domain squatting slime, which required laws to prevent squatting, I think netblock squatting might be the next thing requiring regulation. Its a finite space, and if /8s are going to go for a billion dollars something has gone horribly wrong with the Internet.

Actually 64bit CPUs dont work with the full 64bit address space. They are typically limited to a 40bit address space for actually memory, and 48 bits for virtual memory.

ARIN needs to just take these blocks back. If someone has a /8 that they arent using, then they dont need it and that should be screamingly obvious. IP address spaces are not property, and hording them is douche baggery.