[NCLUG] Need help identifying a mystery network

[Jake Edge]

On Wed, Jun 12, 2002 at 01:49:13PM -0600, Marcio Luis Teixeira wrote:
> 
> Today I just received a 802.11b card and set it up on my laptop. I do not have 
> an access point at home, so I wasn't expecting to get a connection, but much 
> to my amusement I got a moderately strong signal and my machine was assigned 
> an IP address via DHCP (though, alas, I cannot connect to anywhere). The 
> network name is "linksys", which I assume is the brand of the wireless access 
> point. Anyhow, I'm a bit curious to know whose network I'm getting connected 
> to, but so far I haven't found anything out. The IP address I get assigned is 
> a class B address in the network 169.254.0.0 . I did a "whois" search and I 
> get the following information:
> 
> IANA (NETBLK-LINKLOCAL)
>    Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
>    4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330
>    Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6695
>    US
> 
>    Netname: LINKLOCAL
>    Netblock: 169.254.0.0 - 169.254.255.255
> 
>    Coordinator:
>       Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers  (IANA-ARIN)  
> res-ip at iana.org

I poked around a bit on google and it looks like it is a range of addresses
that is 'special' in IPv4 (something to do with auto-configuration - if a
client (host) doesn't have an IP address and requests one via DHCP but
gets no response, it can use an address in that range) ... it is owned by
IANA much like 192.168.x.y is ... so it may be that because DHCP timed
out, it assigned you that address ...

jake