Abstract

Darkspace Construction and Maintenance Page 1 Darkspace Construction and Maintenance Jeff Janies and M. Patrick Collins RedJack FloCon 2011 Page 2 What are Darkspaces? • Simple definition: Externally routable address block(s) to which no legitimate network traffic should be destined. – No active hosts • Gives us an understanding of “background radiation”. – Junk traffic that enters a network – Ex. Scanning, backscatter Page 3 Darkspaces are Found Items • Blocks of unallocated addresses – Large networks likely have several large blocks of darkspace. – Most networks have dark bits interspersed through the network. (Result of historical allocations) • Need consistent information – Estimations from 2 empty /16's should be comparable to 130,000 random dark addresses. Page 4 Darkspace Types • Dedicated: A CIDR-block dedicated to being a darkspace – Never contained active hosts • Partially Populated: …

Date

November 2, 2025

Authors

J Janes, M Collins

Journal

Proceedings of FloCon