AS12853 GENDORF-

The network of a chemical park, under an AS handle that was cut off mid-word.

What it's used for

• The site network of a German chemical industrial park operator. 11,264 addresses across three IPv4 prefixes, one IPv6 prefix, and three observed BGP neighbours.

Notable

• The inventory is 212.68.96.0/19, 79.98.224.0/21 and 185.251.4.0/22, plus 2001:940::/32.
• Netnames are DE-GENDORF-991029, DE-GENDORF-20071109 and DE-GENDORF-20180321.
• The AS handle reads GENDORF-, ending in a hyphen.
• Nine addresses were sampled and none returned a name.

Interesting

• The handle stops mid-word. Something truncated GENDORF-DE at a field boundary and the remainder was never restored, so a trailing hyphen has been this network's public name for years. Registry fields have length limits and no validation for meaning; whatever survives the cut is what everyone sees.
• 991029 is a two-digit year from 29 October 1999. Another holder in this range carries 19991029 — the same day, four digits. The two formats were not successive conventions; they coexisted, and the choice belonged to whoever filled in the form.
• A chemical park is a shared site where several companies operate plants, and one operator runs the roads, power and network for all of them. 11,264 addresses and three neighbours is an industrial campus rather than a business network: the traffic that matters stays inside the fence, and the internet connection is a utility like any other on site.
• The holder's own name contains the phrase trading as followed by a second, longer company name. Legal identity and operating identity are different things, and the registry records both because the form has room for exactly one.