Thus spake "Joe Baptista" <baptista(_at_)DOT-GOD(_dot_)COM>
well what i've heard is that it what we in business call the old screw up.
they forgot the law while they were handing out address space.
cerf explained it very well. they are powerless to do anything. i can
see a IPv4 union of users coming together. his exact words were
"The problem with trying to reclaim (re-possess) IP address space is
enforcement. One has to find a way to stop someone from "advertising" the
assigned address space in the global routing tables before one can
effectively re-use the address space. Unless the party cooperates by
ceasing to advertise the space, assigning it to another party who
advertises this address space will cause inconsistent routing to one or
the other of the advertising networks."
Revoking the IN-ADDR.ARPA delegation for the addresses certainly makes them less
functional. There's nothing stopping anyone from advertising any address space
they want today anyways. Advertising "revoked" address space is just a special
case.
S