[HN Gopher] History of 127/8 as localhost/loopback addresses (2021)
___________________________________________________________________
History of 127/8 as localhost/loopback addresses (2021)
Author : chha
Score : 93 points
Date : 2022-05-25 09:37 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (elists.isoc.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (elists.isoc.org)
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| What I don't understand is why IPv6 only has a single loopback
| address, instead of a /8 or /16. This would enable cool things
| like the OS mapping each subdomain of localhost to a distinct
| IPv6 address.
| Faaak wrote:
| You can use ::ffff:0:0/96 or fc00::/7 for that.
| kortex wrote:
| Is it possible to just use ::ffff:0:0/96 to map them? e.g.
| ::ffff:7f00:0/104 maps to 127/8
| zinekeller wrote:
| Everyone suggesting that ::ffff:0:0/96 is a solution should
| note that not all network stacks are "unified". Windows' stack
| isn't unified (try accessing http://[::ffff:7f00:1]/ while
| having a loopback server and it won't work) and most non-Linux
| embedded OSes separate the network stack for size reasons (to
| the chagrin of IPv6 promoters, but most of them are simply
| trying to fit something into the half-MB EEPROMS like how most
| IoT devices don't have 5GHz Wifi support).
| X-Istence wrote:
| The server would need to bind to that address, and then it
| should work fine as long as that address is assigned to a
| loopback interface.
|
| That's the same as any system right now. If I bind to
| 127.0.0.1 I don't automatically get traffic for or listen on
| 127.0.0.2
| mikl wrote:
| I guess this is related to the recent kerfuffle about to making
| (most of) 127/8 publicly routable to stave off the IPv4 shortage
| a little while longer.
|
| We're just delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later, the band-aid
| has got to come off. ~4 billion IP addresses are simply not
| enough for ~8 billion people.
|
| So maybe we should just refuse to pile on more hacks and force
| the ISPs to get off their ass and upgrade their networks.
| bbarnett wrote:
| ipv6 is untenable. We need ipv4.1.
|
| Just add another octlet at the start, but stored in the options
| field. Old stuff won't get confused, and new stuff will know
| that empty means 1.x.x.x.x.
|
| Problem solved.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| The problem with this is that it requires hardware upgrades
| across the world: your computer, router, all the world's
| switches, a lot of software (e.g. software that stores IP
| addresses as uint32, but also native types that map to
| uint32), DNS infrastructure, etc. etc. etc.
|
| This is basically the same problem as IPv6, except worse
| since we'll start from zero.
|
| In hindsight, clearly a better plan than "this is IPv6, it's
| new, it's better, everyone will adopt it!" was needed for
| IPv6, and it would have helped if the IPv6 people were a bit
| more pragmatic from the start in their design (religious
| opposition to NAT springs to mind), but now it's about 20 to
| 25 years too late.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Easy to fix.
|
| All we have to do, is explain that ipv6 reduces anonymity
| online, and thus, makes it easier for predators to track
| children. And thus, ipv6 endangers children!
|
| This will enable a wellspring of governement grants, to
| roll out firmware updates for switches and routers, etc.
|
| See? A non-problem.
| dtech wrote:
| I fail to see how that is better than the already widely used
| NAT
| zokier wrote:
| Over third of the world is happily using that untenable ipv6.
| That train left the station long time ago and is chugging
| along at steady pace now.
| kortex wrote:
| How does that solve anything? Any hardware is gonna try to
| route packets to the "original" x.x.x.x and completely ignore
| this option field.
| Arubis wrote:
| I hadn't heard about that proposal; do you have a link to
| discussion/source? It sounds like a Bad Idea and I'm curious
| for the arguments in favor.
| placatedmayhem wrote:
| https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-schoen-intarea-
| unicast...
| blibble wrote:
| that seems completely insane
|
| that logic has been hard-coded inside every OS and vast
| amounts of software for 30+ years
|
| and to gain less than 0.8%?
|
| they'd do better targeting the reserved multicast range
| greyface- wrote:
| > they'd do better targeting the reserved multicast range
|
| https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-schoen-intarea-
| unicast...
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > inside every OS and vast amounts of software for 30+
| years
|
| Ha. Ha. Ha.
|
| > that logic has been hard-coded inside
|
| The thing is what some things are literally hardcoded. I
| have a whole bunch of network gear circa 2010 in
| production.
|
| It does support IPv6, but for the most part it is
| extremely rudimentary. What do you want from a box what
| implements SSH by running a telnet session over a no-auth
| SSH session?
|
| And while I can run the latest Windows/Linux/Whatever on
| my _server_ gear, the network gear is not that simple to
| upgrade.
| vlan0 wrote:
| >I have a whole bunch of network gear circa 2010 in
| production
|
| I ran into this 10 years ago. I decided to roll out IPv6
| to clients. Router docs said it was supported. Then I
| watched CPU usage peg because every packet hit the CPU.
| Turns out it was implemented in software; no ASIC
| support. Was quite the buzz kill.
| Tsiklon wrote:
| Ohh wow - I didn't think there were any serious proposals
| for this, this sounds like madness.
| kortex wrote:
| What in the actual eff. Anything except actually switching
| fully to ipv6, amirite?
|
| Trying to see the most charitable position here - is there
| an aspect in which redefining 127/8 to 127/16 across
| billions of devices is actually feasible?
| accountofme wrote:
| I used to work tech support for an ISP years ago....
| Trying to get people to find their modem and see if it
| was plugged into the wall was effort.
|
| Imagine trying to get the same people to upgrade router
| firmware...... no chance
| nybble41 wrote:
| The router is the least of your problems. Consider all
| the devices connected _to_ those routers which don 't
| recognize 127/8 addresses as anything but loopback--some
| of which may never receive updates at all, never mind
| actually getting people to install them.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Imagine trying to get the same people to upgrade
| router firmware...... no chance_
|
| Which is why there are technical standards for the ISP to
| do it from their end:
|
| > _Technical Report 069 (TR-069) is a technical
| specification of the Broadband Forum that defines an
| application layer protocol for remote management and
| provisioning of customer-premises equipment (CPE)
| connected to an Internet Protocol (IP) network. TR-069
| uses the CPE WAN Management Protocol (CWMP) which
| provides support functions for auto-configuration,
| software or firmware image management, software module
| management, status and performance managements, and
| diagnostics._
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-069
|
| (At least on ISP-issued CPE.)
| jSherz wrote:
| I assume that most ISPs push out updates automatically
| unless the hardware is user provided (and thus user
| supported)? I've been through several rounds of "we're
| sending you a new router" with UK ISPs where you're
| aggressively reminded to switch.
| judge2020 wrote:
| This is why the ISP routers and modems have all
| introduced remote updates from the ISP, sometimes going
| further with extra telemetry[0]. Not a great situation
| for those with the technical knowledge, but I don't think
| we can expect people to upgrade their router FW on their
| own.
|
| 0: https://old.reddit.com/r/ATT/comments/mqfy9a/just_got_
| our_ne...
| wyager wrote:
| I was pissed to learn that arris DOCSIS modems do not
| allow you, the owner, to install firmware updates or
| adjust most settings. Only the ISP gets to do that.
| X-Istence wrote:
| That's because bandwidth caps are enforced by the cable
| modem and not further downstream. When you pay for 10
| Mbps down, 1 Mbps up, that is enforced by the cable
| modem.
|
| Earlier versions of cable modems had flaws that allowed
| consumers to push configs on the ethernet port and uncap
| their cable modems and gain higher speeds than they had
| paid for.
| wyager wrote:
| Yep, what a silly design. I almost want to hack it out of
| spite.
| bell-cot wrote:
| If the ISP could add a paragraph to their T&C's, then
| monitor the speed...
|
| "Thank you for upgrading your service to our VVVIP Price
| Tier! Your first three months as a VVVIP customer is 50%
| off..."
| vlan0 wrote:
| >If the ISP could add a paragraph to their T&C's, then
| monitor the speed...
|
| They did, but the overhead at the time was high. And they
| generally didn't peruse unless you were causing
| trouble....or slipped up on OPSEC.
|
| Cable ISP network security back in the day was horrid.
| SNMP string would get leaked. With that you could
| snmpwalk the entire node you were on. It was amusing.
| twic wrote:
| Expires: 12 May 2022
|
| I couldn't find a newer edition, so hopefully this has gone
| to the great standards track in the sky.
| bombcar wrote:
| A slightly more insane but maybe a bit more practical would
| have been to try to move 10.x and friends into 127.x.
| Arubis wrote:
| Thank you. This is wild.
| deknos wrote:
| i would LOVE it, if there was some project which would test
| popular appliances and linux at home, if v6(only) presents any
| problems...
| heretogetout wrote:
| What are users of these ISPs missing out on my not having IPv6?
| They need to rely on NAT for their devices, but that works fine
| as far as they know. Their IoT devices need to connect to
| remote servers instead of wait for remote servers to contact
| them directly, but that won't change how users interact with
| their devices so they won't care.
|
| Maybe this isn't a serious enough crisis and we can just wait
| til it becomes a real issue for users. When it does, it will
| probably be incremental rather than catastrophic, so we'll
| still have time to upgrade networks piecemeal, and with more
| reason to do so.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _What are users of these ISPs missing out on my not having
| IPv6? They need to rely on NAT for their devices_ [...]
|
| This assumes that they can even get an IPv4 address. New ISPs
| and telcos may not be able to get enough IPv4 addresses to
| assign each individual connection one.
|
| So either (a) the CPE only gets an IPv6 address and they have
| to use DNS64/NAT64 or 464XLAT to reach the IPv4 Internet, or
| (b) the CPE gets a shared address space (100.64.0.0/10) IPv4
| address and CG-NAT ensues:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_shared_address_space
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier-grade_NAT
|
| In which case the end-user gets to deal with double-NATing
| (first with their CPE/home router, and second by the ISP).
|
| Case in point someone that is surprised that every customer
| gets a public IP address and CG-NAT is not done:
|
| * https://old.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/uw0qwy/
| 1ncorrect wrote:
| Any effort that may be applied to reclaiming v4 address space
| will always be better directed to expanding global v6
| connectivity.
| yardstick wrote:
| Wouldn't it involve mostly different groups of people?
|
| IPv6 is now supported in the vast majority of operating
| systems and routers and firewalls. It's now down to the
| carriers/ISPs to configure their networks to use it.
|
| Ie the IPv4 issue is a programming issue, while the IPv6
| issue is an administration/configuration issue.
|
| Ie Ciscos software engineers aren't the ones holding back
| your ISP from turning on IPv6. Cisco engineers aren't toiling
| away adding much needed missing IPv6 features.
|
| Unless I've missed something?
| nousermane wrote:
| It's not that somebody is holding your ISP, it's that your
| ISP doesn't see IPv6 as something that they should bother
| doing (very low demand from customers).
|
| And if that ISP happens to be one of those that decided
| that their core competency is marketing, and outsourced
| everything else, including network engineering... Well,
| than they view IPv6 as something expensive/risky (in
| project costs) in addition to useless.
| dijit wrote:
| > very low demand from customers
|
| This actually pisses me off enormously.
|
| It's not that there's low (or no) demand, it's that
| people are not being recorded as having voiced this
| concern.
|
| I can say for certain that over the last ten years when
| ISPs call to upsell their packages I always respond with
| "I'm not going to upgrade unless it gives me ipv6". When
| talking to new ISPs I always ask if they support ipv6 and
| if not: when.
|
| The answer is always "it's not on the roadmap, we don't
| have any people requesting this"- the follow up I usually
| ask is "are you going to write down anywhere that I am
| requesting this? Because others could say the same" and
| they always say that they won't record my interest, even
| though it costs them an upsell or a sale.
|
| So, I figured maybe I'm weird, maybe I am the only one. I
| have no way of knowing.
|
| Except; I met someone else who also does this- we have
| the same ISP and they told him: "nobody has ever asked
| for this" which is categorically untrue since _I_ have
| asked for this.
|
| We're being gaslit by the industry.
| jrmg wrote:
| > It's not that there's low (or no) demand, it's that
| people are not being recorded as having voiced this
| concern.
|
| It's worse than that. People _complain about it being
| on_. Look at any forums about home network or WiFi
| troubleshooting and switching it off on your router will
| often be in the 'first, do this' sort of answers.
|
| Even here this often comes up. The sentiment is 'IPv4 has
| to work reliably because so many people don't have IPv6
| and things need to work for them. You're only asking for
| trouble by also having IPv6'. As a practical matter it's
| hard to argue with, but it's not a way to make
| progress...
| SSLy wrote:
| That's because quite often ipv6 is either badly
| implemented, or once you have it on, it changes ipv4 to
| CGNAT mode (hello, Liberty Media)
| Beltalowda wrote:
| How many random people do you think will answer "yes" if
| you ask them if they 1) know what IPv6 is, and 2) if they
| want it?
|
| Yeah, maybe some ISPs should be listening to their
| customers more (I heard tales of ISPs in the US), but in
| this they're not wrong: consumer demand really is low.
|
| I've switched between IPv6-connected and IPv4-only quite
| a few times over the last 20 years due to moving to
| different countries with different options and was a
| fairly "early adopter" back in the day with the tunnels
| XS4ALL had, and even as a technical person I can't say I
| ever noticed the difference.
| baq wrote:
| > How many random people do you think will answer "yes"
| if you ask them if they 1) know what IPv6 is, and 2) if
| they want it?
|
| you can ask the same question about IPv4 and get same
| answers.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Yes, exactly. People don't care if they use IP or IPX or
| whatnot; as long as it works. And IPv4 _does_ work, so
| people don 't care.
| dijit wrote:
| > And IPv4 does work, so people don't care
|
| I think this elides the point really.
|
| People don't know when an issue is because of ipv4, for a
| good example: network issues in online video games are
| often caused by being unable to NAT punch, lag can also
| be because connection information is relayed by some far
| away STUN server. Same with in-game voice chat.
|
| Usually you need to set port forwards to make games work
| properly.
|
| In the event of GCNAT a customer has no possible
| recourse.
|
| But nobody understands the issue is largely because of
| IPv4, they just assume that's how it is, and assume the
| same issue would exist with IPv6
| nousermane wrote:
| Games, audio/video calls, screen sharing - any peer-to-
| peer traffic is a royal pain in the back with NAT and
| CGNAT especially.
|
| Larger providers (zoom, apple/facetime, twitch, ...) just
| set up relay servers and avoid p2p altogether - which
| cost money, increase latency/jitter, and decrease
| privacy. You can argue all of that are hidden costs of
| sticking to IPv4 for longer than we should have.
| nousermane wrote:
| Well, you can also ask general public whether they prefer
| SAE or metric fasteners, or mix thereof, in their car,
| and get the same blank stare in return.
|
| But ask auto-mechanics, and hoo boy, will there be
| opinions.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Sure, but the argument was that there is a demand from
| the general public/customers, and that's clearly not the
| case.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Furthermore, the lowest adoption tends to be in
| developing countries (Africa, parts of Asia and South-
| America), and I bet simple financial reasons are a decent
| part of the reason for that, if not the primary reason.
| The Indian government has invested quite a lot in IPv6,
| so it's leading in adoption rates last time I checked.
| This is good long-term thinking IMO, since developing
| countries are also the worst affected due to less
| addresses being assigned to them, but not every
| (developing) country has the means for that, and there
| are often other, more pressing, matters to deal with too.
|
| Carrier-grade NAT (multiple consumers sharing the same
| IPv4 address) mostly averted catastrophic problems
| though. It's not perfect, but it works.
| [deleted]
| yardstick wrote:
| No disagreement there.
| 1ncorrect wrote:
| My point is more general. If you ever arrive at a notion
| which involves an attempt to reclaim v4 address space, it's
| a specious conclusion and you need to refactor your
| premise.
|
| A better use of your time and attention will be identifying
| what, within your scope of influence, can be done to
| further the reach of global v6 routing.
| yardstick wrote:
| For a lot of people involved in the making of networking
| equipment, there is no scope of influence over increasing
| the global reach of IPv6. Maybe the documentation and
| sales folk.
|
| I agree it's more important that IPv6 rolls out faster
| and is more widely adopted today.
|
| But as to your original claim " Any effort that may be
| applied to reclaiming v4 address space will always be
| better directed to expanding global v6 connectivity." is
| a false dichotomy.
| vlan0 wrote:
| >So maybe we should just refuse to pile on more hacks and force
| the ISPs to get off their ass and upgrade their networks.
|
| I haven't recently looked at who has deployed what, but is this
| really it? US ISPs like Spectrum has been handing out IPv6
| addresses for years now. My Verizon wireless phone can access
| IPv6 resources w/o issue as well.
|
| However, show me the cloud services folks are implementing that
| are dual stack. Start mandating new service deployment is dual
| stack, and it'll happen. Similar to how the US Govt is pulling
| it off.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Right, consumer ISPs seem to be driving IPv6 adoption not
| lagging it. It's Big Enterprise, including all the supposedly
| "Cloud Native" companies, dragging their feet real hard right
| now.
| vesinisa wrote:
| The best answer in this old thread (Jan 2021, be sure to open the
| [thread] view) seems to be this:
|
| https://elists.isoc.org/pipermail/internet-history/2021-Janu...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| This, coupled with the previous answer that because the class A
| 127 had been reserved, it was hard to tell for backwards
| compatibility reasons what shenanigans had gone on in that
| whole subnet, seems to explain how we lost a whole class A
| subnet to the same function.
| gumby wrote:
| Anyone who is convinced that we really could quickly transition
| to a carbon-free energy future should consider the v4/v6
| transition.
|
| V6 has conquered big chunks of networking (mobile telephony) but
| deploying a v6 on the wider, public internet remains pointless.
| samwillis wrote:
| Exactly, both won't (fully) happen until it's economically
| essential to make the transition.
|
| The parts of the internet stuck on v4 (hard wired IPSs) won't
| move until is economical unviable to not use v6. Hopefully the
| rapid increase in v4 IPs price will eventually push them to
| sell off their addresses and move to v6.
|
| In comparison, the parts of the economy dependent on oil/coal
| won't move until its more expensive to continue.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| If only governments had some way of making it more expensive
| to continue using fossil fuels.
| chrlac wrote:
| They could use further taxes but that would only negatively
| affect the poorer strata of population, as we are currently
| seeing with record high gas prices.
|
| I have a hard time believing that big corporations can be
| pressured with this kind of policies, seeing that they can
| just pass on the extra costs down the line to the
| customers.
| gumby wrote:
| > They could use further taxes but that would only
| negatively affect the poorer strata of population, as we
| are currently seeing with record high gas prices.
|
| Cut subsidies and give more money to the poor.
| coryrc wrote:
| When do we base policy decisions on what's best for the
| poor?
|
| No, I say it's the middle class: they can only just
| afford those big social signals they drive every day and
| don't want to give them up.
| disintegore wrote:
| IPv4 is not an existential threat
| gumby wrote:
| Sure, the analogy is not perfect -- e.g. AFAIK there are no
| subsidies for v4 as there are for fossil fuels.
|
| As far as existential threats go: everybody thinks locally
| and acts globally in most, if not all of their actions.
|
| And existential threats and mortality are difficult for
| people to deal with. In fact there's a whole branch of human
| activity devoted to that topic (religion).
|
| I don't mean to reduce the significance of the risk (I
| dropped my other work and now work in climate repair myself)
| but I think there is are fascinating and instructive lessons
| to be learned from this example.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| The Internet with its AJAX/ReST architecture enabled by
| JavaScript in the browser lets you "link globally, interact
| locally"!
|
| I just hope the Big AJAX Industry doesn't bribe congress to
| subsidize Fossil Protocols such as XML and SOAP, just to
| delay the transition to more environmentally friendly
| technologies like JSON and ReST.
|
| NOTE: This packet is sold by net wait, not by volume.
| Packed as full as practicable by modern automatic
| equipment, it was delayed the full net wait indicated. If
| it does not appear full when opened, it is because contents
| have been compressed during shipping and handling.
| gumby wrote:
| I had never before thought of "think globally, act
| locally" as a description of the end-to-end principle.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| For most people it's just means-to-end principle.
|
| By "everybody thinks locally and acts globally" are you
| making fun of all that old hippie shit?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_globally,_act_locally
|
| Announcement: The new official slogan is "act globally,
| act locally". Please update your programs.
| gumby wrote:
| Yes, regardless of ideals, I think my formulation is
| accurate. Nobody thinks of the polar bears when they
| drive their SUV a mile to pick up a loaf of bread.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| So "think provincially, act catastrophically". ;)
|
| This classic 1973 paper by W Wulf and Mary Shaw of CMU
| was the manifesto of the early anti-globalization
| movement:
|
| https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/953353.953355
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Except for the fact that McDonald's doesn't need to change
| anything for an electric car to use their drive-through.
| Literally the only thing that needs to change to move to
| (hydrogen|electric|whatever) for transportation is the
| refueling step. With IPv6 pretty much everything except the
| wires needed upgrading.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Decarbonization isn't just about cars. Currently, many homes
| have a furnace that burns fossil fuel, which can run from a
| small generator during a power outage. That generator could
| even use the same fuel as the furnace.
|
| Switching to heat pumps means that our electric grids need to
| become a lot more reliable, both in terms of weather
| resistance and generation capacity.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I have lived many places with gas furnaces, and one with an
| oil furnace. None of them have worked when the power was
| out. The only place I have lived that had central heat when
| the power went out was an apartment with steam radiators.
|
| All of the "currently need electricity" furnaces can be
| replaced with heat pumps without improving reliability of
| the grid. And if that is X% of the furnaces, we get X% of
| the total benefit by doing so. With IPv6, as long as each
| person accesses a single server node that is IPv4 only,
| then each person needs an IPv4 address.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| In the days of NCP, before TCP/IP (aka ipv4), the original
| ARPANET TIP manual "Users Guide to the Terminal Imp" (originally
| written in 1971 by William Crowther, one of the authors of
| Adventure) documents on page 5-4 the procedure for connecting an
| input and output socket of one TIP to an input and output socket
| of another TIP, through an unsuspecting host, so you could chat
| back and forth directly between two TIP dial-ups, without
| actually logging into the host.
|
| https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_bbntipADA0eTerminalIMP...
|
| It went something like @HOST #, @SEND TO SOCKET #, @RECEIVE FROM
| SOCKET #, @PROTOCOL BOTH, making sure the sockets were different
| parity so as not to violate the Anita Bryant clause with
| homosocketuality:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422813
|
| You could also add the octal device port number of any other TIP
| user on your same TIP after the @ and before the command, to
| execute those commands on their session. (See page 5-7, "Setting
| Another Terminal's Parameters".) BBN wrote such great
| documentation and would mail copies of it for free to anyone who
| asked (that's how I got mine), you couldn't even call it security
| by obscurity!
| imgabe wrote:
| Coincidentally, I'm reading _Where Wizards Stay Up Late_ about
| the development of ARPANet and it says:
|
| > In designing the IMPs, BBN made it possible to loop the host
| and modem interfaces of the machine, so they could conduct
| "loopback" tests. The loopback test, which could be performed
| remotely, connected an IMP's output to its input, effectively
| isolating the IMP from the rest of the network. This generated
| test traffic through the interface and allowed BBN to check the
| returning traffic against the outgoing traffic generated by the
| IMP.
|
| So it seems like it was in there from the very beginning. No
| mention of the 127/8 address specifically though.
| zrail wrote:
| The IMPs used an internal protocol that IP rode on top of. Like
| today, lots of networks use Ethernet at the physical layer
| today.
| Klaster_1 wrote:
| Great book, read it after a recommendation here. Even though I
| studied telecoms, the networking origins were still very hazy,
| knowing how everything started changes the perspective. As a
| software developer, I can even relate to some aspects of the
| effort.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Keith Henson (who happens to be an old friend of John Gilmore,
| who wrote the internet-history post we're discussing) had to
| explain a geeky in joke about the 127.0.0.1 local loopback
| address, public ftp sites, secret copyrighted Scientologist OT
| religious texts, and a great troll of the usenet
| alt.religion.scientology group, in a legal deposition, under
| oath, to Scientology lawyers, while rolling on the floor laughing
| hysterically.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Henson#Scientology
|
| http://smokyhole.org/kh/kh.htm
|
| http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=6289
|
| Readers of alt.religion.scientology were astonished to notice a
| large collection of alleged secret, copyrighted and trade secret
| protected documents of the church of scientology posted
| anonymously over the weekend of May 5. An expert source known to
| Biased Journalism verified the documents as authentic.
|
| [snip--to transcript from a deposition of Keith Henson by the
| "Church" of Scientology. Lieberman is their lawyer.]
|
| Lieberman: do you know who Patrick J. Volk is?
|
| Henson: to the best of my knowledge I've never heard of this
| person.
|
| Lieberman explains that Volk is apparently communicating from
| some educational institution in Pittsburgh. Henson still doesn't
| recognize the name. Lieberman hands Henson a document.
| From: hkhenson@shell.portal.com (H Keith Henson)
| Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: Re: OT
| Materials... Date: 6 Apr 1995 19:35:38 GMT
| Parick J Volk (pjvst+@pitt.edu) wrote: : Screw the
| courts.... : I have an ftp site for all the OT
| materials... : ftp:127.0.0.1
| /pub/texts/news/alt/religion/scientology : I don't
| know how long I'll have it up. : P J Volk :
| (alt.2600 lives! All hail the clams and trolls!)
| Great stuff! But don't you expect the 'ho to blow a gasket?
|
| Henson: (cracks up) this is a great troll.
|
| Lieberman: (acidly) you find this amusing?
|
| Henson: yes. It's an in joke.
|
| Lieberman quotes from the Volk post: "screw the courts" and also
| says that he has an ftp site for all the OT materials. "Mr.
| Henson is laughing hysterically about this posting for reasons
| that I suppose he understands--" Henson offers to explain.
|
| Lieberman: What's an ftp site?
|
| Henson explains that ftp means file transfer protocol. You can
| use almost any machine on the Internet to access a file on almost
| any other machine, that has been placed in an ftp directory, he
| says with relish. [He goes on at length about how this is done.]
|
| Lieberman: Okay. "So when he said 'I have an ftp site for all the
| OT materials,' he is saying he has all the OT materials on a site
| which people can access." Was Henson aware of Patrick Volk's ftp
| site? Does this refresh your recollection? he demands.
|
| Henson: well, you see right after the colon, it says
| ftp:127.0.0.1?
|
| Lieberman: yes.
|
| Henson: that's a loopback address.
|
| Lieberman wants to pursue the question of the site with the OT
| materials. Was Henson aware of Patrick Volk's ftp site?
|
| Henson: (patiently) It's at 127.0.0.1. This is a loop back
| address. This is a troll.
|
| Lieberman: what's a troll?
|
| Henson: it comes from the fishing where you troll a bait along in
| the water and a fish will jump and bite the thing, and the idea
| of it is that the internet is a very humorous place and it's
| especially good to troll people who don't have any sense of humor
| at all, and this is a troll because an ftp site of 127.0.0.1
| doesn't go anywhere. It loops right back around into your own
| machine.
|
| Lieberman [not getting it]: So the idea here was to make the
| church think that this person had an ftp site and to take action
| against him and, in fact, he didn't have it; is that your point?
|
| Henson: Oh, it's really humorous, and I picked up on it and
| instantly added something to extend the troll. Extending the
| trolls like this is an art form of the highest order.
|
| Lieberman (acidly): I see. So this is part of your art form where
| you say, "don't you expect the 'ho to blow a gasket?"
|
| Henson: yes.
|
| Lieberman (starting to lose his temper): so you do remember this
| posting apparently?
|
| Henson (helpfully): I can't remember for certain that I did this
| one, and certainly I could not swear to any of the material on
| here being letter perfect on it (but he goes on to say that it is
| such a good one that he would be happy to take credit for it).
|
| Lieberman: You find this whole thing kind of amusing, don't you?
|
| Henson: Oh, this is screamingly funny.
|
| Lieberman (no more Mr. Nice Guy): You find it amusing to make
| Helena Kobrin and the church go after you or other people for
| this sort of thing, whether you have the materials or not; is
| that right?
|
| Henson: It's a great game.
|
| Lieberman: It is a great game. You really find it amusing, don't
| you?
|
| Henson: It's an extremely amusing thing.
|
| Lieberman: All right. You find it amusing when you receive these
| letters from Ms. Kobrin, the cease and desist letters? It's part
| of the game; isn't it? [This goes on for awhile as Lieberman
| hammers at the point. Henson reiterates that he is amused, and
| wants to talk about the SP levels.]
|
| Lieberman: You find it an amusing part of the game when you
| receive these cease and desist letters, right?
|
| Henson: No, no. It's not amusing, it's a major increment in
| status.
|
| Lieberman: I see. You feel this increases your status, right? On
| the internet, on a.r.s.
|
| Henson: Yes, absolutely.
|
| Lieberman: All right. And it's all part of this game, right?
|
| Henson: Absolutely.
|
| Lieberman: It's all part of the troll, right?
|
| Henson (waving exhibit): This is a great troll. I mean, anybody
| in the computer business instantly would have spotted this,
| ftp:127. In fact, it even says trolls in here (indicating). In
| fact, this was cross-posted from --
|
| Lieberman has heard more than enough about trolls: "There is no
| question pending. You can hold your comments."
|
| Lieberman (with an air of getting into the bizarre nature of the
| situation): why did you think this would cause Ms. Kobrin to blow
| a gasket?
|
| Henson: this wasn't addressed to Helena. He goes on to explain
| that the message is a loop back. If it worked at all it would be
| a loopback to your own machine. If you tried it you'd discover
| it's a troll. The 127 is the loopback address! It's a joke, but
| the lawyer isn't getting it.
|
| [The observer notices that the RTC lawyer has connected "the 'ho"
| with Ms. Kobrin. Evidently the nickname has made transit to the
| solid world. Ms. Kobrin is stuck with it for life.]
| dale_glass wrote:
| It works much better when you take advantage of the /8, and use
| an address like 127.23.213.58 -- works just as well, but far
| fewer people will catch on.
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