[ih] What is the origin of the private network address 192.168.*.*?

[Vint Cerf]

arpanet was decommissioned july 1990 i believe.

v

On Sep 10, 2009, at 3:45 PM, Craig Partridge wrote:

>> The excellent Q&A site Server Fault has an interesting question,  
>> which
>> may interest some persons here. Answer directly on Server Fault (you
>> need to log in with an OpenID identifier) or post here and I'll write
>> it back to Server Fault.
>>
>> http://serverfault.com/questions/64013/what-is-the-origin-of-the-private-netw
>> ork-address-192-168
>>
>> I had a smart (but non-technical) user ask me today:
>>
>> Why did they pick 192.168.. for a private network address?
>> The only answer I could come up with is because 192 = 11000000 in  
>> binary. And
>> 168 is 10101000 in binary. Both of which are kind of cool looking.
>>
>> Is there a real historical reason for that particular choice of  
>> numbers? Why
>> not 127.127..? Or 128.128..?
>
>
> Dunno, though the fact it is what used to be a class C address is a  
> hint
> but I think the convention was established after we went to CIDR.
>
>> Similar question for 10.0.0.0 and 172.16.0.0
>
> 10.0.0.0 is easy.  For folks who needed LARGE private networks the  
> only
> large space available by the early 1990s was the old ARPANET network
> number (the ARPANET was net 10 and was decommissioned around 1991).
>
> ********************
> Craig Partridge
> Chief Scientist, BBN Technologies
> E-mail: craig at aland.bbn.com or craig at bbn.com
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