AS248

AS248 is a low-numbered legacy autonomous system number held in the RIPE NCC database under the name IDDQD-AS. It falls inside the IANA 16-bit AS block 1–1876, which RIPEstat metadata labels "Assigned by ARIN" — a historical allocation that now lives in the RIPE registry, with ARIN's RDAP redirecting queries to rdap.db.ripe.net. The key triage point is that AS248 is dormant: every routing source consulted (RIPEstat as-overview, announced-prefixes, routing-status, and CAIDA AS Rank) agrees it currently announces zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes, is seen by 0 of 327 IPv4 RIS peers and 0 of 324 IPv6 RIS peers, and has a CAIDA degree of zero (no upstreams, peers, or customers). Its customer cone is a singleton (itself, 0 prefixes, 0 addresses) and its CAIDA rank of 79,459 sits near the bottom of the global ranking. The record carries no formal organization: the sole administrative and technical contact is an individual, Michael Horn (RIPE handle HORN-RIPE) at a Berlin, Germany address, maintained by FNORD-MNT. Historical BGP shows the ASN was active between roughly 2005 and 2010 (first seen 2005-12-12 announcing 81.163.0.0/16, last seen 2010-03-07 announcing 94.45.224.0/19), but it has been routing-silent for over a decade. The autnum object was registered 2002-08-21 and last changed 2017-11-24 per RIPE RDAP top-level events. No notable public abuse signal was found as of June 2026 — not in Spamhaus ASN-DROP, CleanTalk (clean, 0% spam), RIPE abuse contacts (none registered), or NANOG archives — consistent with a clean, long-dormant ASN. The name "IDDQD" is the Doom invincibility cheat code, suggesting an informal or hobbyist origin, though that is contextual inference rather than a documented operator fact.

Operator

no formal organization on record; sole admin/tech contact is an individual, Michael Horn (RIPE handle HORN-RIPE), Berlin, Germany; maintained by FNORD-MNT [Confirmed] — RIPE RDAP autnum/248, rdap.db.ripe.net/entity/HORN-RIPE

Country / RIR

Germany (admin contact: 10042 Berlin, DE); RIPE NCC [Confirmed] — RIPE RDAP autnum/248, RIPEstat abuse-contact-finder (authoritative_rir: ripe)

Allocated

2002-08-21 (RIPE RDAP autnum top-level event eventAction=registration, eventDate=2002-08-21T16:05:58Z — a first-party RIR fact); last changed 2017-11-24 [Confirmed] — RIPE RDAP autnum/248 events

AS name / status

IDDQD-AS; status "active" in the registry object but routing-dormant; IANA block 1–1876 ("Assigned by ARIN", now held in RIPE) [Confirmed] — RIPE RDAP autnum/248, RIPEstat as-overview

Org status

Unknown — no legal entity type recorded; no organization handle is associated with the AS, only an individual contact [Confirmed] — RIPE RDAP autnum/248, rdap.db.ripe.net/entity/HORN-RIPE

Website

nibbler.de is the associated domain per IPinfo, but the site returns a near-blank page with no company information [Likely] — ipinfo.io/AS248

Contacts

Michael Horn (HORN-RIPE), 10042 Berlin, DE; maintainer FNORD-MNT; no abuse contact registered [Confirmed] — rdap.db.ripe.net/entity/HORN-RIPE, RIPEstat abuse-contact-finder

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-06-20 — absent from Spamhaus ASN-DROP, CleanTalk clean (1 email tracked, 0 blacklisted, 0% spam), no RIPE abuse contact registered, no NANOG/threat-feed mentions

Network & routing

Network type

Unknown — no operator documentation; IPinfo labels it "ISP, Business or Hosting (Inactive)", a third-party classification only [Likely] — ipinfo.io/AS248

Size

dormant — 0 IPv4 prefixes / 0 IPv4 addresses and 0 IPv6 prefixes; customer cone = 1 ASN (itself), 0 prefixes, 0 addresses [Confirmed] — RIPEstat as-overview / announced-prefixes / routing-status, CAIDA AS Rank (2026-06)

Routing/peering

NOT announced — 0/327 IPv4 RIS peers and 0/324 IPv6 RIS peers see it; CAIDA degree total 0 (customer 0, peer 0, provider 0); no PeeringDB entry (peeringdb.com/asn/248 → 404); no peering policy published [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status, CAIDA AS Rank, ipinfo.io/AS248

Routing history

active ~2005–2010 — first seen 2005-12-12 (81.163.0.0/16), last seen 2010-03-07 (94.45.224.0/19); routing-silent since [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status

RPKI

not assessable — no announced prefixes, so no ROAs to validate; RIPEstat RPKI validation skipped (no active prefix) [Confirmed] — RIPEstat

Notable usage

Unknown — no public documentation of services. The name "IDDQD" is the Doom invincibility cheat code, suggesting an informal/hobbyist origin, but this is contextual inference, not operator-sourced [Unknown]

Analyst note

Encountered as a clean, long-dormant low-numbered RIPE legacy ASN held by an individual rather than an organization; active BGP only in the mid/late 2000s, silent for 15+ years. Note A5 reported a Czech Republic (Prague) registration via a third-party lite lookup, which conflicts with the first-party RIPE RDAP Berlin, Germany contact address — the authoritative RDAP record (Germany) is recorded; the Prague value is single-source third-party and not adopted.