The U.S. Department of Defense has given a Florida company control over about 175 million of its IP addresses as part of a security pilot program.

The IP address range, registered as GRS-DoD, AS8003 became active Jan. 20 in the last minutes of the Trump administration, with several pundits suggesting that the timing may be conspiratorial in nature. The company handed the IP addresses is called Global Resource Systems LLC, a previously unknown company which the Associated Press described Saturday as “shadowy.”

The IP addresses were noticed as becoming active at the time and there’s not a shortage of them — about 6% of all IPv4 addresses on the internet. That the Defense Department owns the IP addresses has long been known — it created the internet and has held the IP addresses for decades — but for much of that time, the majority had remained dormant.

The Pentagon has now given an official explanation for the surprise return of the IP addresses to the internet, saying that it handed them over to Global Resource Systems as a pilot to evaluate its IP address space and to ensure there are no vulnerabilities. The program is being coordinated through a section of the department called Defense Digital Services.

DDS Director Brett Goldstein said in a statement Friday that the pilot also may identify potential vulnerabilities. The unauthorized use of IP addresses refers to the risk of IP squatting. The Pentagon periodically contends with unauthorized squatting on its space because of the shortage of IPv4 addresses.

According to Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at network observation company Kentik Inc., activating dormant IP addresses makes it easier for the department to scare off any would-be squatters. Where it perhaps gets more interesting, however, is that Madory also argues that it will also allow the Defense Department to “collect a massive amount of background internet traffic for threat intelligence.”

Madory argues that much remains a mystery. “Why did the DoD not just announce this address space themselves instead of directing an outside entity to use the AS of a long-dormant email marketing firm?” Madory said. “Why did it come to life in the final moments of the previous administration?”

Photo: gregwest98/Flickr