AS296

AS296 is a legacy autonomous system number registered under ARIN to Air Force Systems Networking (AFSN), a United States Air Force / Department of Defense network organization administered through the ARIN organization handle 7ESG (DISA-Columbus). The autnum top-level registration event dates the ASN to 1989-06-08, placing it among the earliest ARIN-managed assignments — a relic of the early Internet's heavy military and research presence in the low-numbered AS space. The key triage point for AS296 is that it is effectively dormant today: every routing source consulted (RIPEstat, CAIDA AS Rank, IPinfo, bgp.he.net) agrees it announces zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes, is seen by zero RIS peers, and has zero observed BGP neighbours. Its CAIDA AS rank of 79,459 sits near the bottom of the global ranking, reflecting complete routing inactivity, and its customer cone is a singleton (the ASN itself, 0 prefixes, 0 addresses). AFSN's broader mission covers design, installation, sustainment, and modernization of Air Force classified and unclassified data communications across base, intermediate (NOSC/INOSC), and enterprise (AFNET) levels, CONUS and OCONUS. RPKI posture cannot be assessed for AS296 because there are no active originations and therefore no ROAs. No notable public abuse signal was found as of June 2026 — Scamalytics rates the broader AFSN ISP at 0/100 (very low fraud risk), and no Spamhaus, CleanTalk, FireHOL, AbuseIPDB, or NANOG signal surfaced — consistent with a clean, dormant ASN held by a government operator with no live attack surface.

Operator

Air Force Systems Networking (AFSN) — U.S. Air Force / DoD; ARIN org handle 7ESG (DISA-Columbus); ASN name ACFP-AS [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/296, whois.arin.net/rest/asn/AS296

Country / RIR

US, ARIN [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/296; RIPEstat abuse-contact-finder (authoritative_rir: arin)

Allocated

1989-06-08 (ARIN registry date — first-party RIR fact, NOT an IEEE date; IEEE publishes no ASN registration dates); last changed 2009-05-14 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum top-level events

Org status

ARIN registration active; operationally inactive/dormant — AS296 announces zero prefixes and has zero observed peers. ARIN org/entity record (7ESG) last modified 2025-03-13, indicating the registrant remains active even though AS296 is retired from routing

[Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/296 and entity/7ESG; bgp.he.net/AS296

Contacts

abuse/registration disa.columbus.ns.mbx.arin-registrations@mail.mil; +1-844-347-2457 ext. 2; registrant address Maxwell AFB (Gunter Annex), AL 36114; admin/registration contact DISA-Columbus, 300 North James Road, Whitehall, OH 43213, US [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/296 and entity/7ESG

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-06-26 — Scamalytics rates the AFSN ISP umbrella 0/100 (very low fraud risk); no Spamhaus ASN-DROP, CleanTalk, FireHOL, AbuseIPDB, or NANOG signal surfaced; a non-routing ASN presents no live attack surface [Likely — several reputation portals were auth-walled] — scamalytics.com/ip/isp/air-force-systems-networking; spamhaus.org/blocklists; ipinfo.io/AS296

Network & routing

Network type

U.S. federal government / military network; AS296 is legacy/inactive (no active routing) [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/296; solutions71.com/air-force-systems-networking-afsn

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 / IPinfo (2026-06)

Routing/peering

NOT announced — 0 RIS peers seeing it (0/325 v4, 0/323 v6); CAIDA degree total 0 (customer 0, peer 0, provider 0); no upstreams or peers visible in any source [Confirmed]. No public peering policy found [Unknown] — RIPEstat routing-status; bgp.he.net/AS296

RPKI

not assessable — AS296 announces no prefixes, so there are no ROAs to validate [Confirmed] — RIPEstat rpki-validation (no prefix to validate)

Notable usage

AFSN supports Air Force classified and unclassified data communications across DoD/CONUS/OCONUS installations (Active Duty, AFRC, ANG). AS296 is an early/legacy assignment (1989) carrying no active prefixes; it is one of roughly 69 ASNs managed under ARIN org 7ESG [Confirmed for org/mission; Likely for the broader count] — ARIN RDAP entity/7ESG; solutions71.com/air-force-systems-networking-afsn

Related ASNs

numerous other AFSN ASNs are registered under the same ARIN org 7ESG (e.g. AS61, AS65, AS123, AS385, AS486, AS548) [Likely — per third-party DBs; exact list varies by source] — ARIN RDAP entity/7ESG; ipinfo.io/AS296

Analyst note

Encountered as a dormant legacy ASN registered to a U.S. military operator; WHOIS/RDAP resolves to Air Force Systems Networking (org 7ESG), but the ASN carries no live routing. Clean, inactive ASN. Note: angle A5 reported RIPE NCC / whois.ripe.net as the registry — that is incorrect; ARIN is authoritative per the first-party RDAP autnum, which RIPEstat's abuse-contact-finder confirms (authoritative_rir: arin).