The IPv4 address space is becoming a scarce resource and the Internet Registries are working hard to reclaim unused IPv4 address blocks to be able to continue to allocate the requested address blocks. The 1.0.0.0/8 is one of the candidate address blocks to be used within the coming months, but network operators are a bit frightened by the fact that there are probably many networks that already use private addresses such as 1.2.3.4/32 or similar "simple IP addresses".

To evaluate the usability of 1.0.0.0/8, youtube has started a small experiment. Their BGP routers are currently advertising 1.0.0.0/8 and they collect all packets sent to any address in this block. Currently, youtube receives about 175 Mbps of noise towards this prefix, without having placed any server or any DNS record pointing to an address inside this block. youtube collects the received packets and some researchers will analyze the distribution of the packets received.

Think twice if your network operator proposes a new block of IP addresses in 1.0.0.0/8...