In this context, 'ASN' stands for 'Autonomous System Number' ;broadly speaking, this tells us who is responsible for a particular IPaddress (or, technically speaking, who is ultimately responsible forgetting IP packets to it).

There's a number of who other ways to tell who owns an IP address(querying whois.arin.net and then other registrars, for example), butthere are two attractions of ASNs for this purpose:

• there are comprehensive IP to ASN databases that are easily

Reliably archiving things is a troublesome issue. There are a numberof places to find numbers for how long CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and varioussorts of tapes all last, and lots of debate, and lots of people whowill sell you solutions, and so on. I don't have much to add to theirnumbers and marketing information.

But I have been around for long enough to have burnt my fingers andseen other people's fingers burnt, and thus I have arrived at what I