Re: [anti-spam-wg@localhost] Proposal: list of unassigned IP space

[Nick Hilliard <]

On Mon, 2003-02-03 at 16:02, furio ercolessi wrote:
> It now happens more and more frequently that spammers, or possibly
> other abusers, hijack parts of IP space that nobody owns to carry on
> abusive activities.   Sometimes it is space that has never been
> assigned; sometimes space that was assigned in the past, then
> withdrawn (no whois record); sometimes space that was assigned in 
> the past, still looks assigned (whois record exists), but is no 
> longer in use.

I seem to remember predicting on lir-wg some years ago that this would
happen sooner or later.  The sad thing about it is that protecting
against this sort of abuse is not difficult.  Anti-kudos to the ISP's
who don't filter customer bgp announcements.

> I was wondering whether there is a way to know, by automatic methods
> and on a (say) daily basis, what are the IP blocks in the RIPE area
> which are not assigned to anyone at present, as far as the registry
> knows.  If not, I propose to make such a list available.  People could 
> download it and use it to filter mail, or nullroute, or whatever.

in addition to the list that Shane Kerr published, take a look at Rob
Thomas's bogon list:

http://www.cymru.com/Documents/bogon-list.html

This is a list of IP address space which has not been allocated by IANA,
and which should consequently never appear on the Internet. 

Nick