Actually, it was a mistake NOT reserving more human-friendly IP blocks for documentation/example purpose. The three /24 blocks reserved all fail blatantly because nobody remembers them, and they look as unsuspicious as normal blocks.
1.2.3.0/24 would be a much better choice because people would easily remember them and know it's not "real", just like you would not take a phone number 123-4567 on a filled form as "real" (even though it might be).
Next time you make anything, please remember to design for human.
The 10.x region is the reason that a former employer is such a huge user of NAT. They'd acquire a business who were also using that range, and they'd integrate the networks via NAT because it was too hard & dangerous to change the acquired company's devices & services.
Except these days a real number is commonly used if it provides a marketing benefit, given how easy it is for people to pause movies and read all visible text.
I'm watching Hawaii Five-Oh on Netflix at the moment, and the show regularly uses that prefix when a phone number is required for the plot. Makes me smile every time they do it.
Except that not everybody knows that. I use the # for information at stores, when asked for a #, and the cashiers usually have no idea what 555-1212 means. In my sample, the vast majority of people do NOT know.
Yeah, my technique is to punch a random number into the machine, if it works then no problem, but if not the cashier will just scan the "store card" after the 2nd failure.
That's my technique too, but when the cashier asks to look up my number I give them 555-1212. That is what fed into my comment. Most people don't care what number is used, but many also don't know that 555-1212 is the secondary information number. This, of course, depends upon their age and geography. This comes up in the friendly conversations that result upon them looking up the phone number.
You should have said something like "note that the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, albeit less known to the general public, also lives in the building", which is technically true.
How do you differentiate not caring what number you gave them from not knowing? The fact that they showed no reaction is more of a sign of how few fucks are given rather than everyone else's ignorance.
It used to connect you to directory information (as in "I need to number for mikestew in Seattle...") for the specified area code (or local, if no area code specified). I don't know if it still works or not.
There are other codes in there, caller & circuit id read-backs and other utilities the telco will use. They're usually private, but no serious harm if the public find out about them.
Saying that not carving a single /24 out of a class A network is bad UX when variable length netmasks weren't even in use yet is a fundamentally silly misreading of history.
Actually, it was a mistake NOT reserving more human-friendly IP blocks for documentation/example purpose. The three /24 blocks reserved all fail blatantly because nobody remembers them, and they look as unsuspicious as normal blocks.
1.2.3.0/24 would be a much better choice because people would easily remember them and know it's not "real", just like you would not take a phone number 123-4567 on a filled form as "real" (even though it might be).
Next time you make anything, please remember to design for human.