AS282

AS282 is a legacy ARIN-region autonomous system number associated with Merit — the Michigan-based nonprofit research-and-education (R&E) network consortium founded in 1966 by Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University, and the operator of the NSFNET backbone (1987–1995) that became the modern commercial Internet. The handle MERIT-AUX-AS marks this as an "auxiliary," secondary number distinct from Merit's active operational ASN, AS237 (Merit Network, Inc.). Third-party registries record the registrant as "Merit Technology, Inc.," which appears to be a closely related or alternative legal name for the same organization. The defining triage fact for AS282 is that it is completely dark: every routing source consulted (RIPEstat as-overview, routing-status, and announced-prefixes, plus bgp.he.net) agrees it announces zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes, is seen by 0 of 327 IPv4 and 0 of 324 IPv6 RIS peers, has zero observed BGP neighbours, and holds no abuse contacts. Its ARIN RDAP autnum record returned HTTP 404 at query time, and CIRCL BGP Ranking reclassified the number to "-Reserved AS-" (country code ZZ) as of 2023-08-04, consistent with ARIN reclamation or withdrawal. RPKI posture is not assessable (no originations, hence no ROAs). No notable public abuse signal was found as of June 2026 — AS282 is absent from Spamhaus ASN-DROP, from ipapi.is "most abusive" rankings, and from NANOG archives — consistent with a dormant, since-reserved legacy ASN tied to a respected R&E operator.

Operator

Merit Technology, Inc. (handle MERIT-AUX-AS; "AUX" = auxiliary/secondary; same or closely related entity to Merit Network, Inc., the AS237 registrant) [Confirmed] — ipinfo.io/AS282, cidr-report.org autnums, bgp.potaroo.net asn list

Country / RIR

US (Michigan), ARIN [Confirmed] — RIPEstat abuse-contact-finder (authoritative_rir: arin), ipinfo.io/AS282

RIR block

1-1876, "IANA 16-bit Autonomous System (AS) Numbers Registry," assigned by ARIN [Confirmed] — RIPEstat as-overview (resource 282)

Allocated

null — no canonical allocation date available: the first-party ARIN RDAP autnum/282 endpoint returns HTTP 404 (autnum absent from ARIN RDAP), consistent with CIRCL's "-Reserved AS-" reclamation since 2023-08-04. The IPinfo ARIN-derived value (1989-04-22) is NOT carried because it cannot be confirmed against the autnum top-level events[]

[Confirmed negative] — rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/282 (HTTP 404), bgpranking.circl.lu/asn?asn=282

Org status

active independent nonprofit consortium (Merit), incorporated in Michigan, founded 1966, governed by Michigan's public universities [Confirmed] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Network, merit.edu/about

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal as of 2026-06-21 — absent from Spamhaus ASN-DROP, ipapi.is "most abusive ASNs," and NANOG archives; URLhaus/AbuseIPDB/CleanTalk endpoints were bot-challenged/403/404 and could not be queried directly; CIRCL BGP Ranking lists the ASN but exposed no malicious-IP counts. With zero IPs hosted, current attack-surface relevance is minimal

Network & routing

Network type

regional R&E network; AS282 is an auxiliary/legacy number, dormant — Merit's active operational routing runs under AS237 [Confirmed] — merit.edu/about, ipinfo.io/AS282, bgp.he.net/AS282

Size

dark — 0 IPv4 prefixes / 0 IPv4 addresses and 0 IPv6 prefixes / 0 /48s; not announced [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status & announced-prefixes (resource 282), bgp.he.net/AS282

Routing/peering

NOT announced — 0/327 v4 and 0/324 v6 RIS peers seeing it; 0 observed neighbours; 0 upstreams, 0 peers in any source [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status, bgp.he.net/AS282. AS282 has no PeeringDB entry; Merit's active AS237 runs a Selective peering policy (peering@merit.edu)

[Confirmed for AS237 policy] — peeringdb.com/asn/237

RPKI

not assessable — AS282 announces no prefixes, so there are no ROAs to validate (RPKI validation skipped, no prefix supplied) [Confirmed] — RIPEstat (rpki-validation skipped)

AS rank / customer cone

Unknown — CAIDA AS Rank API returned HTTP 502 at query time [Unknown] — api.asrank.caida.org (502)

Notable usage

Merit operated the NSFNET backbone (1987–1995), operates RADb (one of the largest public IRRs), runs the Michigan Cyber Range, and provides Internet2 connectivity over ~4,000 miles of Michigan fiber; AS282 itself is an inactive auxiliary number with no current routing activity [Confirmed for Merit org; Confirmed AS282 inactive] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Network, merit.edu/about, merit.edu RADb page, bgp.he.net/AS282

Related ASNs

AS237 (Merit Network, Inc. — active operational network with IXP presence at Any2Chicago, DET-iX, Equinix Chicago, Grand Rapids IX) [Confirmed for AS237] — peeringdb.com/asn/237

Last updated (ARIN)

2019-03-15 per IPinfo (ARIN-derived) [Likely] — ipinfo.io/AS282

Reserved status

CIRCL BGP Ranking reclassifies AS282 to "-Reserved AS-" with country code ZZ as of 2023-08-04 (historical 2018–2021 entries name "Merit Technology, Inc."); consistent with ARIN reclamation/withdrawal [Likely] — bgpranking.circl.lu/asn?asn=282

Analyst note

Encountered as a dark auxiliary ASN whose ARIN RDAP autnum record 404s and which CIRCL flags as "-Reserved AS-" since 2023. WHOIS/third-party DBs resolve it to Merit; live routing runs under AS237, not AS282. allocated_date is null — the first-party ARIN RDAP autnum/282 returns HTTP 404, so no canonical allocation date is available; the IPinfo ARIN-derived value (1989-04-22) is not carried because it cannot be confirmed against the autnum top-level events[].