<tt>> it even makes sense. if you're not going to be on the internet, > why the heck do you need an internet address? </tt> <tt>Because you are building an internetwork using the Internet Protocol.</tt> <tt>Perhaps you are connecting together several networks, some</tt> <tt>of which might also be connected to the Internet and as</tt> <tt>a result, you need globally unique addresses. If you can't</tt> <tt>imagine a "network which might be connected to the Internet"</tt> <tt>then consider a company like DeutscheBank. They have hundreds</tt> <tt>of locations connected together and one would expect that </tt> <tt>some of the sub-networks within their corporate network</tt> <tt>are rather secure because they handle millions of euros in</tt> <tt>financial transactions every day. At the same time, hundreds</tt> <tt>of DeutscheBank employees need access to the Internet through</tt> <tt>some other sub-networks. Now imagine that the financial</tt> <tt>transaction side of the business needs to connect to an </tt> <tt>IP internetwork in order to transact business with other</tt> <tt>banks and financial institutions but that this IP internetwork</tt> <tt>is not the Internet and is not connected to the Internet.</tt> <tt>There was a time when we could visualize the Internet as</tt> <tt>a nice cloud which everyone connected to. Nowadays, the</tt> <tt>picture is rather less clear as because there are many,</tt> <tt>many international IP internetworks that are not the</tt> <tt>public Internet. If you go back to that cloud picture,</tt> <tt>imagine that the millions of sites connected to the cloud</tt> <tt>form a kind of fur that surrounds the cloud. Then </tt> <tt>imagine that there are some very thin membranes that</tt> <tt>touch the tips of the fur but do not touch the cloud</tt> <tt>itself. According to RFC 2050, these membranes deserve</tt> <tt>to get registered IP addresses because they are NOT</tt> <tt>private networks. They are internetworks.</tt> <tt>--Michael Dillon</tt>