[amsat-bb] ORI receives half million dollar grant, and it's only the first.

[Phil Karn]

On 9/10/20 19:40, Bruce Perens via AMSAT-BB wrote:
>
> In the present time, people have grown to take the Internet a lot more
> seriously, and the world ran out of IPV4 addresses in their 32-bit space.
> We now have IPV6, which has a much larger address space, but IPV4 is still
> important. So, Brian and friends sold 3/4 of our addresses to Amazon for a
> lot of money, and formed a non-profit to manage it.

Correction: ARDC sold 1/4 (not 3/4) of its original IPv4 address block,
44.0.0.0/8. The part that was sold is 44.192.0.0/10, i.e., the top
quarter, which had never been used on the "real" Internet though it had
been used internally in some European ampr subnets.

ampr.org still has the bottom 3/4 of its original assignment: 44.0.0.0/9
and 44.128.0.0/10. Hams running IP are still able to use these two blocks.

The 44.0.0.0/8 block was originally obtained by Hank Magnuski, KA6M, in
the early 1980s, literally for the cost of a phone call. It did not see
much use until the mid 1980s when I began work on my KA9Q NOS TCP/IP
package; at that time, Hank transferred control of the 44 block to me.
Brian Kantor WB6CYT and Wally Lindstruth WA6JPR soon joined in its
management, with Brian running much of the infrastructure out of the
University of California San Diego (UCSD) where he spent his entire career.

NONE of us had any idea whatsoever that these numbers would someday have
serious monetary value. We did amprnet simply because we really believed
in the potential of the Internet and, as hams, felt ham radio was the
perfect place to experiment with the Internet protocols. (Some of you
have fond memories of those days, as do I.) We thought it was a cool
idea that would find good uses, but we had no idea that the Internet
over radio would change the world as much as it did. It certainly
changed my life; in 1991 I moved from New Jersey to San Diego to accept
a position with Qualcomm largely on the basis of my work with TCP/IP
over ham radio, and Brian and I became very close friends.

In the early 2010s, Brian obtained Hank's and my consent to transfer
formal ownership of this address block to a nonprofit he created for the
purpose: Amateur Radio Digital Communications, or ARDC. (Wally
Lindstruth had passed away by this time). In 2018 and 2019, with full
knowledge and consent of the ARDC board, Brian negotiated the sale of
the 44.192.0.0/10 block with the proceeds to ARDC to be used for a wide
range of charitable grants to benefit ham radio, the Internet, and
especially the intersection of the two and their role in STEM education.
Unfortunately, the nature of the IP address market and the size of the
sale necessitated secrecy, which none of us liked. A nondisclosure
agreement still limits what we can publicly say about the terms of the
sale, though some facts can be readily determined from public sources
such as the "whois" database and IP address market data.

Brian passed away unexpectedly in November 2019 and I've taken over as
president and chair of ARDC. Hank continues to serve on the grant review
committee chaired by John Hays, K7VE.

Since ARDC is an IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation, it is required to
file detailed tax returns (990 forms) with the IRS; this will happen
very shortly. By law, nonprofit tax returns are publicly available.

Phil Karn, KA9Q

ARDC President & Chair