AS232

AS232 is a legacy autonomous system number registered under ARIN to Merit Network, Inc., a nonprofit research-and-education (R&E) network founded in 1966 and governed by Michigan's public universities. Its registration runs deep into Internet history: the ARIN RDAP autnum top-level registration event is dated 1988-09-12, placing AS232 among the oldest entries in the registry and coinciding with the launch of the NSFNET backbone that Merit operated from 1987 to 1995 — the direct predecessor of the modern commercial Internet. Merit also founded and administered NANOG, the North American Network Operators' Group, from 1994 until roughly 2010–2011, and it founded and still operates RADb, one of the largest public Internet Routing Registries. The decisive triage fact for AS232 is that it is dormant today: every routing source consulted (RIPEstat, CAIDA AS Rank, bgp.he.net, bgp.tools) agrees it announces zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes, has zero visible BGP peers, zero upstreams, and zero customers. Its CAIDA AS rank of 79,459 sits near the bottom of the global ranking, and its customer cone is a singleton (the ASN itself, 0 prefixes, 0 addresses). RIPEstat routing history shows it was active in the past — first BGP appearance 2000-10-31 (198.78.252.0/24), last seen 2024-05-23 — but it has been withdrawn from the global table since then. Merit's active operational routing runs under AS237. RPKI posture cannot be assessed for AS232 because there are no active originations and therefore no ROAs. No notable public abuse signal was found as of June 2026 — not in Spamhaus ASN-DROP, NANOG archives, or accessible threat feeds. The one security-adjacent annotation is a Hurricane Electric bogon flag tied to IPv6 prefix 2406:2c0:110d::/48 (associated with AS139008 / NEEF IT Limited, Bangladesh); the precise cause of that flag — routing artifact versus active misorigination — could not be confirmed from open sources, and given the ASN's withdrawal from the global table since May 2024, active abuse from AS232 itself is unlikely.

Operator

Merit Network, Inc. (nonprofit R&E network; ARIN handle MICH-Z / MERIT-AS-9, Ann Arbor, MI) [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP, merit.edu/about

Country / RIR

US, ARIN [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum (handle AS232)

Allocated

1988-09-12 (ARIN registry date, NOT an IEEE date — IEEE publishes no ASN registration dates); last changed 2012-04-02 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum top-level events

Org status

active independent nonprofit corporation (Merit Network), governed by Michigan's public universities; founded 1966; operated NSFNET under a ~$39M NSF award; President & CEO Joseph Sawasky (since 2015) [Confirmed for nonprofit/founding via merit.edu + Wikipedia; Likely for CEO detail]

Contacts

abuse@merit.edu (+1-734-527-5740, handle NETWO26-ARIN); operations@merit.edu; ipreg@merit.edu; HQ 880 Technology Drive, Suite B, Ann Arbor, MI 48108 [Confirmed via ARIN RDAP]

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-06-19 — not in Spamhaus ASN-DROP, NANOG archives, or accessible threat feeds (AbuseIPDB 404, CleanTalk/Cloudflare Radar 403 for AS232) [Confirmed for Spamhaus/NANOG absence; Unknown for the access-blocked feeds]. One HE BGP Toolkit bogon flag is tied to IPv6 2406:2c0:110d::/48 (associated with AS139008 / NEEF IT Limited, Bangladesh); cause unverified

Network & routing

Network type

regional research and education (R&E) network; AS232 is legacy/inactive (Merit's active network runs under AS237) [Confirmed] — merit.edu/about, peeringdb.com/net/928

Size

dormant — 0 IPv4 prefixes / 0 IPv4 addresses and 0 IPv6 prefixes; customer cone = 1 ASN (itself), 0 prefixes, 0 addresses [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status / CAIDA AS Rank / bgp.he.net / bgp.tools (2026-06)

Routing/peering

NOT announced — RIPEstat reports announced=false with 0 observed neighbours; CAIDA asnDegree total 0 (customer 0, peer 0, provider 0); no upstreams or peers visible in any source [Confirmed]. Routing history: first seen 2000-10-31 (198.78.252.0/24), last seen 2024-05-23 (2406:2c0:110d::/48) [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status. Merit's active AS237 runs a Selective peering policy (peering@merit.edu) [Likely for AS237 policy]

RPKI

not assessable — AS232 announces no prefixes, so there are no ROAs to validate [Confirmed] — RIPEstat rpki-validation

Notable usage

Merit operated the NSFNET backbone (1987–1995), founded and administered NANOG (1994–~2011), and operates RADb (IRR). AS232 (MERIT-AS-9) is an early/legacy Merit ASN allocated 1988-09-12, coinciding with the NSFNET backbone launch; active infrastructure now runs under AS237 — merit.edu/research/projects/the-nsfnet-backbone-service, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Network

Related ASNs

AS237 (Merit's active operational network); Merit holds additional ASNs (e.g. AS181–185, AS229–233, AS235–238, AS689, AS750–759) [Confirmed for AS237; Likely for the broader block list per third-party DB]

Analyst note

Encountered as a dormant legacy ASN registered to a historically significant R&E operator; WHOIS resolves to Merit Network, but live routing is under AS237, not AS232. Clean, inactive ASN; the lone bogon annotation is an unverified third-party flag, not attributable abuse.