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RIPE Region Hostcount for November 2000
by RIPE Hostcount Maintainer 14 Dec '00

14 Dec '00

Dear All, below is the hostcount for November 2000. The table shows an increase since last month of over 1,000,000 (or 9.1%) to a total of almost 12,100,000 hosts in the DNS in Europe and surrounding areas. The 'it' domain shows the highest increase for November with approximately 550,000 hosts more than in October. Background information and more statistics are available at http://www.ripe.net/hostcount/ - Brief Notes on this Hostcount - - the January data had to be reused for uk due to problems with co.uk. since that time. - the October data had to be reused for lu and il due to zone transfer restrictions at the top level. - no details of the number of no response and AXFR block zones are available for de. - the large increase can mostly be attributed to recovered hosts which were lost to the hostcount in previous months, rather than a structural increase. Please see... http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/stats/hostcount/faq.html#axfr - Credits - I would like to thank all people who help me to create the hostcount every month by running a local count: ad Joan Marc Lauga am Hrant Dadivanyan at Gerhard Winkler be DNS-BE Registration Office ch Marcel Schneider cy Vasoula Papapetrou cz Jiri Orsag de Peter Koch dk Morten Christensen eg EUN Hostcount Admin es ES NIC fr Annie Renard gr Dimitris Zisiadis hr Ivan Maric ie Mike Norris il Netvision NOC is Marius Olafsson it Maurizio Martinelli Daniele Vannozzi li Marcel Schneider lt Daiva Tamulioniene lu Alain Frieden mk Goran Muratovski mt Robert Sultana no Havard Eidnes pl Mirek Luc pt Joao Pagaime ro Eugenie Staicut ru Andrey Dobrotsvetov sk Lubos Elias sm Maurizio Martinelli Daniele Vannozzi tr METU Hostcount Admin uk Robert Stone Kevin Hoadley If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Kind regards, Lee Wilmot RIPE NCC RIPE DNS Hostcount Previous Count : Sat Nov 18 2000 This Count : Tue Dec 12 2000 CY SOA COUNTED DUPL REAL CHANGE ============================================================== ad 518 2360 725 1635 + 555 ae 2205 44645 2224 42421 - 236 al 74 239 26 213 + 41 am 774 3810 1192 2618 - 10 at 124834 676824 193616 483208 + 27928 az 469 1937 374 1563 + 2 ba 253 2955 545 2410 + 33 be 23531 341116 40923 300193 + 403 bg 1124 21560 2574 18986 + 23 bh 20 108 57 51 - 105 by 220 2661 434 2227 - 31 ch 155263 448562 216334 232228 - 5420 ci 238 842 305 537 + 24 cm 38 314 18 296 + 2 cv 19 128 102 26 + 1 cy 748 7929 791 7138 + 40 cz 79029 234404 73113 161291 + 11637 de 2091335 8132113 6125636 2006477 + 83614 dj 18 59 17 42 + 1 dk 166120 539978 213104 326874 - 16676 dz 51 268 32 236 + 80 ee 6686 44957 5850 39107 + 4503 eg 1716 3361 1170 2191 + 49 er 22 248 22 226 + 221 es 15962 377766 21854 355912 + 22882 fi 19709 584793 51704 533089 + 4937 fr 84440 1273601 155261 1118340 + 23869 ga 24 68 32 36 + 4 gb 2 24 0 24 0 ge 362 2118 685 1433 + 14 gg 986 2067 736 1331 + 44 gh 35 361 48 313 + 267 gi 400 1586 110 1476 - 38 gl 655 2806 328 2478 + 7 gn 7 332 137 195 - 2 gr 17584 129172 17739 111433 + 39836 gw 2 21 1 20 0 hr 3504 24986 9382 15604 + 163 hu 29104 169043 48055 120988 + 47059 ie 14957 130671 19868 110803 - 411 il 13601 133761 33901 99860 0 ir 192 1743 359 1384 + 38 is 5296 58713 20035 38678 + 3522 it 361392 1432452 456735 975717 +551691 je 995 1925 552 1373 + 47 ke 987 5494 728 4766 + 140 kg 402 4557 608 3949 + 358 kz 1595 8850 1567 7283 + 262 lb 1 0 0 0 - 3010 li 4485 9288 5288 4000 + 114 lr 10 0 0 0 0 lt 6007 21137 3496 17641 + 810 lu 4979 15736 3922 11814 0 lv 4192 26064 6424 19640 - 179 ma 1118 3639 1976 1663 - 62 mc 342 874 425 449 + 2 mk 641 2007 464 1543 - 78 ml 26 322 25 297 + 4 mt 889 8274 1586 6688 + 18 ng 274 2087 1400 687 + 255 nl 354791 2106760 583848 1522912 +105426 no 39415 486152 36209 449943 - 13338 om 75 5851 2943 2908 - 2 pl 74383 363096 106229 256867 - 39830 pt 7430 78575 15510 63065 + 2143 qa 22 2250 33 2217 + 2159 ro 8518 58382 11808 46574 + 1293 ru 17059 86858 32495 54363 -202405 sa 1667 5499 1814 3685 + 986 se 53545 658420 65896 592524 +344856 si 3848 26406 5121 21285 - 165 sj 1 0 0 0 0 sk 22240 56315 18409 37906 + 239 sl 7 210 0 210 0 sm 263 1033 178 855 + 7 sn 340 2227 397 1830 + 251 su 1469 25010 1819 23191 + 4575 sy 3 18 9 9 0 tj 114 942 676 266 - 378 tm 466 1878 646 1232 - 117 tn 2 83 58 25 + 2 tr 12254 89140 12994 76146 + 5823 ua 15321 86134 52799 33335 - 707 ug 242 392 149 243 - 502 uk 478844 2502998 825052 1677946 0 va 2 9 0 9 0 yu 6266 19881 4393 15488 + 1007 ============================================================== 87 4349049 21612235 9524100 12088135 +1010565 -1 -1591 ======== +1008974 * 'im' was included in the count last month but not this month due to zone transfer restrictions at the top level. It's total contribution to the number of real hosts was 1591.

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RIPE Region Hostcount for October 2000
by RIPE Hostcount Maintainer 23 Nov '00

23 Nov '00

Dear All, below is the hostcount for October 2000. The table shows a *decrease* since last month of over 160,000 (or %1.5) to a total of around 11,080,000 hosts in the DNS in Europe and surrounding areas. The ru domain shows the highest increase for October with approximately 210,000 hosts more than in September. Background information and more statistics are available at http://www.ripe.net/hostcount/ - Brief Notes on this Hostcount - - the January data had to be reused for uk due to problems with co.uk. since that time. - the September data had to be reused for il, it and nl due to various collection problems. - Credits - I would like to thank all people who help me to create the hostcount every month by running a local count: ad Joan Marc Lauga am Hrant Dadivanyan at Gerhard Winkler be DNS-BE Registration Office ch Marcel Schneider cy Vasoula Papapetrou cz Jiri Orsag de Peter Koch dk Morten Christensen eg EUN Hostcount Admin es ES NIC fr Annie Renard gr Dimitris Zisiadis hr Ivan Maric ie Mike Norris il Netvision NOC is Marius Olafsson it Maurizio Martinelli Daniele Vannozzi li Marcel Schneider lt Daiva Tamulioniene lu Alain Frieden mk Goran Muratovski mt Robert Sultana no Havard Eidnes pl Mirek Luc pt Joao Pagaime ro Eugenie Staicut ru Andrey Dobrotsvetov sk Lubos Elias sm Maurizio Martinelli Daniele Vannozzi tr METU Hostcount Admin uk Robert Stone Kevin Hoadley If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me, but please try the FAQ first... http://www.ripe.net/hostcount/faq.html Kind regards, Lee Wilmot RIPE NCC RIPE DNS Hostcount Previous Count : Fri Oct 13 2000 This Count : Sat Nov 18 2000 CY SOA COUNTED DUPL REAL CHANGE ============================================================== ad 495 1781 701 1080 - 57 ae 2045 44720 2063 42657 + 1393 al 66 197 25 172 + 6 am 762 3512 884 2628 + 96 at 120007 641635 186355 455280 + 11103 az 402 1927 366 1561 + 11 ba 277 2946 569 2377 + 27 be 23581 346326 46536 299790 + 2907 bg 1109 21266 2303 18963 + 3036 bh 55 515 359 156 - 1137 by 207 2638 380 2258 + 30 ch 148996 444583 206935 237648 - 774 ci 227 784 271 513 + 41 cm 38 318 24 294 + 2 cv 17 121 96 25 0 cy 713 7877 779 7098 - 99 cz 77139 218136 68482 149654 - 2259 de 1977558 7694624 5771761 1922863 + 1484 dj 17 57 16 41 + 1 dk 163159 569977 226427 343550 + 11531 dz 55 182 26 156 - 336 ee 6344 44099 9495 34604 + 737 eg 1638 3221 1079 2142 - 57 er 1 5 0 5 0 es 18875 358042 25012 333030 - 22882 fi 19135 577829 49677 528152 + 157 fr 83213 1246665 152194 1094471 + 39797 ga 23 64 32 32 + 1 gb 2 24 0 24 0 ge 332 2028 609 1419 + 61 gg 916 1945 658 1287 + 23 gh 14 55 9 46 - 301 gi 448 2214 700 1514 + 138 gl 632 2781 310 2471 + 15 gn 7 333 136 197 0 gr 11413 82819 11222 71597 - 20557 gw 2 21 1 20 0 hr 3315 24087 8646 15441 + 296 hu 20195 135448 61519 73929 - 28614 ie 14688 130753 19539 111214 + 1030 il 13601 133761 33901 99860 0 im 459 1932 341 1591 + 15 ir 170 1647 301 1346 - 184 is 5095 54237 19081 35156 - 2581 it 179395 626691 202665 424026 0 je 922 1799 473 1326 + 21 ke 913 5328 702 4626 + 3561 kg 369 4172 581 3591 - 45 kz 1519 8485 1464 7021 + 954 lb 963 3925 915 3010 + 611 li 4213 8891 5005 3886 + 114 lr 10 0 0 0 0 lt 5736 20042 3211 16831 + 1718 lu 4979 15736 3922 11814 + 730 lv 3961 25833 6014 19819 + 964 ma 1061 3605 1880 1725 + 25 mc 320 810 363 447 + 9 mk 631 2042 421 1621 + 159 ml 35 326 33 293 + 51 mt 871 8230 1560 6670 + 80 ng 255 1635 1203 432 + 295 nl 320304 1947310 529824 1417486 0 no 39897 503670 40389 463281 + 307 om 71 5845 2935 2910 + 27 pl 72521 402925 106228 296697 + 3444 pt 7229 73531 12609 60922 - 7874 qa 24 139 81 58 - 14 ro 8125 56565 11284 45281 - 170 ru 62584 441299 184531 256768 +211298 sa 1564 4159 1460 2699 + 76 se 33224 284960 37292 247668 -382948 si 3714 26318 4868 21450 - 66 sj 1 0 0 0 0 sk 21012 55236 17569 37667 + 7426 sl 7 210 0 210 + 4 sm 247 1014 166 848 + 13 sn 324 1958 379 1579 + 19 su 1320 20067 1451 18616 - 4562 sy 3 18 9 9 + 1 tj 397 1733 1089 644 - 20 tm 467 1963 614 1349 + 9 tn 2 78 55 23 - 4 tr 9329 81025 10702 70323 + 2023 ua 14076 81377 47335 34042 + 981 ug 221 876 131 745 + 5 uk 478844 2502998 825052 1677946 0 va 2 9 0 9 0 yu 6103 18695 4214 14481 - 126 ============================================================== 88 4005208 20059660 8980499 11079161 -166804

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RIPE Meeting fee increase 2001
by RIPE NCC Meeting Registration 22 Nov '00

22 Nov '00

Dear Colleagues, [ Apologies for duplicate mails ] We would like to inform you that the RIPE meeting fees will increase for the year 2001. The reason for this increase is that the RIPE meetings have become a five day event and the increase will ensure cost recovery. The fees for 2001 will be as follows: RIPE Meeting only including reduction; EUR 300 RIPE Meeting only excluding reduction; EUR 350 RIPE Meeting plus RIPE dinner including reduction; EUR 365 RIPE Meeting plus RIPE dinner excluding reduction; EUR 415 Sincerely, Bettina Schroeder Office Manager RIPE NCC

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RIPE 38 Meeting Announcement
by RIPE NCC Meeting Registration 22 Nov '00

22 Nov '00

Dear Colleagues, [ Apologies for duplicate mails ] It is our pleasure to open registration for the RIPE 38 meeting, to be held from 22-26 January, 2001 at: Hotel Krasnapolsky, in Amsterdam. More information about this meeting and accommodations can be found on this page: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/current/ripe-38/index.html On-site registration will open on Monday, 22 January, 2001. Please note the following: - - - - To avoid wait queues at the registration desk on-site we encourage pre-payment by credit card. The registration fee for this meeting is EUR 350.00 (this includes refreshments and lunches) and the dinner fee is EUR 65.00. However, if payment is received before 12 January, 2001, the pre-payment cut-off date, you will receive a pre-registration discount of EUR 50.00. Therefore, the fee for attendees paying before the cut-off date is EUR 300.00 for the meeting and 65.00 EUR for the RIPE dinner event. Confirmation of Registration: For your convenience you can register using our secure website at: https://www.ripe.net/cgi-bin/mtgreg (encrypted form) http://www.ripe.net/cgi-bin/mtgreg (non-encrypted form) If you still prefer not to send your credit card number using an encrypted transfer method, we have prepared a fax form. This form is attached to the acknowledgement of your registration. You will receive a second acknowledgement by e-mail as soon your payment has been processed. In addition, you will find the receipt for your payment in your conference envelope. Participants requiring a visa to enter The Netherlands are advised to begin the required procedures as soon as possible. The RIPE Meeting organisers are pleased to provide letters of invitation to those attendees requiring them. Should you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at <meeting(a)ripe.net>. Kind regards, Sylvana Wenderhold RIPE Meeting Registrations - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- %START Do not change the following field %MTG [ ripe38 ] Please add a value in the 'box' area marked between the square brackets (i.e. "[" and "]" s). If values are already supplied between the brackets, please delete all values except one. PART 1 - Registration Note this is what will be used for your badge and for the attendee list, so please take care to fill it in correctly. 1) Your name Please enter your first name only. Please look at the example and refrain from using all capitals. e.g. John , Mary B. %NAME [ ] Please enter your last name next e.g. Doe %SURNAME [ ] 2) Your Organisation/Institution %ORG [ ] 3) Your Organisation's Complete Postal Address e.g. Singel 258, 1016 AB Amsterdam, The Netherlands %ORGADDR [ ] 4) Your Organisation type e.g. Commercial (com), Government (gov), Association (aso), Educational (edu), Other (oth) (please delete all choices except one) %ORGTYPE [ com / gov / aso / edu / oth ] 5) The NCC Reg-id of your Organisation %REGID [ ] (Only if you represent a Local Internet Registry) 6) Your e-mail address %EMAIL [ ] 7) Country code of organisation e.g. IT FR DE %CTRY [ ] 8) Do you want to attend the Newcomers Introductory Talk ? (please delete one option so your choice is in the form) %INTRO-MTG [ no / yes ] 9) Do you want to attend the EOF? (please delete one option so your choice is in the form) %EOF [ no / yes ] PART 2 - Payment of Registration Fees WARNING!! - Note that sending your credit card information via e-mail is in principle not secure. The payment information will be transmitted in clear via e-mail. If you do not want to do this, please leave your credit card details blank in this form, and send them to us by fax. Please do not forget to mention your name and organisation on the fax, so there will be no risk in us getting confused. Our fax number is: +31 20 535 44 45 1) Method of payment. Payment in advance is greatly preferred. (please delete all choices except one) %PMETH [in advance; credit card / at meeting; credit card / at meeting; cash ] ( *NB: please note aforementioned reduction when paying in advance *) 2) Type of credit card (please delete all choices except one) %CTYPE [ VISA / American Express / Mastercard / Eurocard ] 3) Amount to be paid %AMT [RIPE Meeting only incl. reduction; EUR 300 / RIPE Meeting only excl. reduction; EUR 350 / RIPE Meeting plus RIPE dinner incl. reduction; EUR 365 / RIPE Meeting plus RIPE dinner excl. reduction; EUR 415 ] Payment details sent online cannot be processed after, January 12, 2001 with this form. You are welcome to send in your personal data with this form to register, but the actual payment can then only be made at the meeting itself on January 22-25, 2001. ( again: please choose reduction ONLY when paying in advance ) 4) If you are coming to the RIPE dinner, indicate if you want a vegetarian meal. (please delete one option so your choice is in the form) %VEGGIE [ no / yes ] %END

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RIPE NCC Web Services interruption warning
by RIPE NCC Staff 17 Nov '00

17 Nov '00

Dear Members, Today, Friday, 17 November, starting at 12:00pm (CET) we are re-arranging our internal network. From that time on there may be a few brief interruptions of some of our web-based services. Some of the robots might also not respond immediately, however, since mails will be queued there is no need to resend messages if you do not get a prompt auto-answer. In the evening the situation should be stable again. The whois server and the web-interface to the whois server should remain fully operational. If you notice glitches with any of our services please bear with us and try again later. Thanks, Olaf Kolkman Operations Manager RIPE NCC

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ASN Allocation questions
by Graham Burke 20 Oct '00

20 Oct '00

Hi this maillist has always been very helpful in the past so hopefully it can help answer a query i've got. Basically we are a registered Lir with our own /19 range however we have been bought over by another company which also has its own allocation - both /19s are registered in our respective names, We are now in the position where we want to combine the networks and multihon to a couple of upstream providers and have geographically deceided to use one range for the North and the other for the south. I know that we must have at least 2 carriers lined up before applying which is no problem- How do Ripe view this with regard to assigning a single AS number? hope this makes sense, any comments appreciated Many Thanks Graham -- Network System Administrator NSL (Internet) Ltd, 26 Forth Street, Edinburgh, EH1 3LH, UK tel + 44 (0)131 477 8215 fax + 44 (0)131 477 8223 http://www.nsl.net

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RIPE NCC Test-boxes and Test Traffic Measurements Service
by Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC) 20 Oct '00

20 Oct '00

Dear colleagues, (Apologies for any duplicate mails). The New Projects group at the RIPE NCC is pleased to announce that 25 new test-boxes have been delivered, tested and are ready to be installed at your site. More test-boxes will be assemble as soon as these 25 machines have been shipped. These test-boxes measure delays and losses on the Internet by sending time-stamped packets to each other. A more detailed description is available in RIPE document 209 (see below). At this moment, we are also moving the Test Traffic Measurements from an experimental product to a regular membership service offered by the RIPE NCC. Under this service, the RIPE NCC will operate the test-box and analyze the measurement data for you. With the introduction of this service, 2 restrictions will be removed: * The TTM service will be available to everybody interested, not just the current LIR members, * Any organization can apply for more than 1 test-box, and, for example, install a box at every major PoP. Another change is that you will have to pay for the hardware of the boxes. A test-box currently costs 2750 Euro. This includes the installation costs, but does not include shipping, taxes and import/export duties. The RIPE NCC has been asked to introduce a service fee (of approximately 3000 Euro/Year) for the operation of the boxes. However, for tax-reasons, it is currently not possible to do this. Therefore: * There will be NO service fee for the remainder of 2000 and the first months of 2001. For those of you familiar with the project, it is worth noticing that the hardware of the boxes has been improved. The most important change is in the design of the antenna. In the new machines, the HF-unit has been moved to the antenna, thus eliminating the need for expensive coax cable between the antenna and the test-box itself. Instead, regular CAT-5 cable can be used and cable lengths of (at least) 200 to 300 meters are possible. Also, the boxes have more CPU and memory available and this feature will be exploited in the future do other measurements and analyze the data on the box, thus reducing the time between data-taking and availability of the results. In short, this means: * Easier installation * More freedom in installing the antennas. If you are interested in hosting a test-box, please start by reading the following documents, all available from the test-traffic web-site at http://www.ripe.net/test-traffic/: * RIPE-209, "Providing Test Traffic Measurements as a membership service". This document describes the model the RIPE-NCC will use for selling the test-boxes and the related service for operating them. * RIPE-214, "General Terms to the RIPE-NCC Test Traffic Measurements and Test-Box Purchase Agreement". This document contains the contract used to sell the test-boxes. It is the translation of RIPE-209 into "legalise". * RIPE-168 (Version 2.1 or later). This is the installation guide for the test-boxes. The current document is somewhat outdated, in particular the section on the antenna installation. An update will be published early November. A document that is presently being written is a "2 page glossy summary" of RIPE-209, describing the advantages of hosting a test-box for your manager. If you are interested in hosting one or more test-boxes, please fill out the application sheet at http://www.ripe.net/test-traffic/Host_testbox. If anything is unclear or you have questions that are not answered in the documents, do not hesitate to contact us. The application procedure has become a little more complex than before, but still shouldn't take much more than a few minutes to complete. Sites that have already expressed interest in hosting a box will be contacted in a separate mail. As announced before, we will give the existing test-box hosts a possibility to upgrade your hardware. This will announced, when we are ready to do this, in a separate mail. There is no deadline for applying. Applications will be processed in the order as they come in and processed as soon as our production schedule permits. If you have any questions about this project, please do not hesitate to contact me. Kind regards, Henk Uijterwaal ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Henk Uijterwaal Email: henk.uijterwaal(a)ripe.net RIPE Network Coordination Centre WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk Singel 258 Phone: +31.20.535-4414, Fax -4445 1016 AB Amsterdam Home: +31.20.4195305 The Netherlands Mobile: +31.6.55861746 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A man can take a train and never reach his destination. (Kerouac, well before RFC2780).

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RE: RIPE Region Hostcount for September 2000
by mike.norris＠heanet.ie 19 Oct '00

19 Oct '00

> Is this loss due to a technical problem or some general changes > (named-based vhosting instead of IP-based vhosting)? Or just > "fluctuation"? A cursory examination would indicate a mix of factors. Countries with large drops such as fr (-320407), it (-102268) and pt (-19322) still saw increases in their SOA counts. This could be due, as you say, to more name-based virtual hosting, or to more use of NAT, firewalls/private addresses etc. A few countries saw drops in both hosts and SOA records e.g. ru (-88806 hosts, -20199 domains), hu (-18232 hosts, -978 domains). Here we probably have "fluctuations", as zones, for whatever reason, don't get counted this time. It looks like we're seeing the end of the systematic increase in the number of hosts. However, the trend in the number of domains is monotonically upwards; this is probably a better metric of Internet growth than the host count. Regards. Mike

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RE: RIPE Region Hostcount for September 2000
by mike.norris＠heanet.ie 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

> > (1) by removing AXFR privileges to the world (including our hostcount > host, 130.59.1.30), or > > (2) by moving to a "split" DNS scheme, in which only hosts with > external services (in the "DMZ") are listed in the DNS, the > internal hosts being in another version of the organisation's zone > which is only visible from the inside. > > The latter is proably difficult to work around. > > The effect of (1) could be reduced by kindly asking people to allow > AXFR from 130.59.1.80 when setting up zones directly under .ch/.li. > Some cooperation from large hosting organisations, or ISPs which > operate large numbers of secondaries on behalf of their customers > would be valuable for keeping the hostcount realistic. I agree, Simon. We see a lot of (1) in the .ie domain as well and would endorse and widen your plea to apply to all TLDs in the RIPE area. To help in this, RIPE NCC have set up a domain hostcount.ripe.net, which is designed to advertise forward mappings to the hostcount collector in each ccTLD. Thus, for example, ie-collector.hostcount.ripe.net maps to 193.1.193.194, while the reverse mapping is handled locally by the .ie collector (HEAnet in this case). In that way, RIPE NCC authenticates the IP address of their hostcount collectors. I would hope that this would carry some weight with the ISPs/ASPs in question and would persuade them to take part in this collaborative effort. > > Asking for such cooperation would be easier if there was a strict > privacy policy for the intermediate data produced by the hostcount > software. Absolutely. Mike Norris

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Re: RIPE Region Hostcount for September 2000
by Simon Leinen 17 Oct '00

17 Oct '00

>>>>> "dr" == Daniel Roesen <noc(a)entire-systems.com> writes: > On Tue, Oct 17, 2000 at 02:00:19PM +0200, RIPE Hostcount Maintainer wrote: >> The overall decrease was largely attributable to a loss of >> around 320,000 hosts from the fr TLD. > Is this loss due to a technical problem or some general changes > (named-based vhosting instead of IP-based vhosting)? Or just > "fluctuation"? In our region (CH & LI), when we "lose" large numbers of hosts this is usually because some large sites or ISPs restrict access to their zone data, either (1) by removing AXFR privileges to the world (including our hostcount host, 130.59.1.30), or (2) by moving to a "split" DNS scheme, in which only hosts with external services (in the "DMZ") are listed in the DNS, the internal hosts being in another version of the organisation's zone which is only visible from the inside. The latter is proably difficult to work around. The effect of (1) could be reduced by kindly asking people to allow AXFR from 130.59.1.80 when setting up zones directly under .ch/.li. Some cooperation from large hosting organisations, or ISPs which operate large numbers of secondaries on behalf of their customers would be valuable for keeping the hostcount realistic. Asking for such cooperation would be easier if there was a strict privacy policy for the intermediate data produced by the hostcount software. -- Simon.

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