Pentagon Has Given Company Control Over 175 Million IP Addresses

The US military has turned to an unusual strategy that gave Florida startup Global Resource Systems control of roughly 175 million IPv4 addresses.

The company started managing the long-dormant addresses on January 20th, but that number grew quickly over the next three months.

Brett Goldstein, director of the Pentagon’s Digital Defense Service, told the Post that the move is part of a “pilot effort” to study and prevent the unauthorized use of military IP addresses.

It would also help identify “potential vulnerabilities,” said Goldstein. The Department of Defense pointed out that it still has IP addresses.

It is unclear what employees hope to achieve, but the company itself is mysterious. GRS was only created in September 2020 and does not even have a public website.

Doug Madory, from Kentik, suggested that a flood of data targeted at IP addresses could help the military collect information about threats or exploitation. And when some Chinese companies use similar IP address numbering schemes for their internal networks, there is a chance that some of their data will be routed to the United States.