The SWIP stuff I cleaned up included stuff from the pre-2000 period when the internet was a kinder, gentler place. NAT also wasn't a thing so if a company had 1000 PCs you allocated them multiple /24s. So SWIP was a thing. And yes, it was how you justified more space.
Once NAT happened and we switched to mostly handing customers /32s and started recovering larger allocations, the SWIP also stopped and the bitrot started to set in. About that time I became less involved due to being pulled other directions so no one was maintaining the SWIP. When someone started whining about whois data being outdated probably 5+ years ago I just went in and removed the swips. An interesting datapoint is that last I checked our original pair of /24s that were provided to us by our original tier 1 provider in 1994 is still listing us in the whois data even though we haven't used that carrier or the address space for 20+ years now. On Fri, May 5, 2023, 6:48 AM richey goldberg <richey.goldb...@gmail.com> wrote: > The only real reason I can think that you would want space SWIPed to you > is if you are trying to get an allocation of your own and trying to prove > you have existing space to renumber out of. > > In 25 years of working for ISPs I don’t think I’ve ever worked for one > that SWIPed IP space of any size to an end user and I don’t think I’ve ever > seen a request. Mostly because no one wants to put a list of customers out > in the public domain. > > > > In the early 2000s I worked for a local provider who had a competing Muni > who was using whois and rDNS to target all of the local provider’s > customers. I overheard two of their sales guys while eating at a local > restaurant telling each other how they could use that info for leads and > which tech was helping them get it. I went back to the office that > afternoon and sanitized our rDNS to put a stop to that. > > > > -richey > > > > *From: *NANOG <nanog-bounces+richey.goldberg=gmail....@nanog.org> on > behalf of Forrest Christian (List Account) <li...@packetflux.com> > *Date: *Thursday, May 4, 2023 at 10:09 PM > *To: *Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) <lyn...@orthanc.ca> > *Cc: *nanog list <nanog@nanog.org> > *Subject: *Re: Aptum refuses to SWIP > > I can't speak for aptum, but I'm curious as to why this is important to > you? I'm not trying to discount this at all, just curious why this > matters in the internet of 2023. > > > > I went through a couple years back and removed all of our mostly outdated > SWIP data and replaced it with generic information. But I run an eyeballs > network and I don't remember the last time we allocated something shorter > than a /28 to a customer. > > > > I can think of a couple reasons it might be good for the swip to still > reflect the actual customer. But most of the ones I can think of don't > apply as much anymore. About the only things I can think about which may > matter has to do with reverse dns delegation if the parent block is smaller > than a /16 and maybe having specific contact or address information in > specific circumstances. > > > > Mainly I'm asking to update my personal knowledge of how these records are > used anymore. > > > > On Thu, May 4, 2023, 3:36 PM Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) < > lyn...@orthanc.ca> wrote: > > It seems Aptum has decided they will no longer SWIP any of their > address space. I've been trying to get a SWIP for a /48 that we > were allocated in 2017, but they refuse. And I also see they have > pro-actively gone in and un-SWIPed both our /24s. > > Since you are ignoring my tickets about this, maybe somebody from > Aptum would care to speak up in public and defend this "policy?" > > --lyndon > >