I know it was a joke, but according to his other comments he seems to think IP addresses cannot be owned because they are nothing but numbers.

> IP addresses cannot be owned

It is my understanding that IP addresses are not owned, indeed. Please correct if wrong.

There are historical IP space who governance is not clear, but for most IP space it's de facto "owned" by RIRs who assign some ranges to their members. According to RIPE assignment policy:

> Assignment of this IP space is valid as long as the criteria for the original assignment are met and only for the duration of the service agreement between yourself and us. We have the right to reassign the address space to another user upon termination of this agreement or an agreed period thereafter.

Internet "ownership" of resources is, or at least was, in my understanding a form of usage-based ownership (as defined by anarchist thinkers). You operate some resources and your ownership is based on that need precisely, despite having to pay some administrative fees (for domain names and IP addresses) to ensure public service infrastructure is maintained properly. Until recently, domain names and IP ranges were not subject to the "laws" of offer and demand, but rather to a first-come-first-served basis. But apart from historical actors (read governments and military industrial complex) who benefit from special rules in order to maintain backwards-compatibility forever, IP space is managed communally through RIRs and no entity exactly owns IP addresses, at least in a private-property based understanding of ownership.

Of course, my claiming to sell 127.* was a joke :)

That's true though. If you're a tier 1 network then you can advertise whatever you want, and if they cut you off on that advertised address, then you can cut your peer's address off. And, if you're big enough, the peers can't just disconnect from you altogether or they themselves would lose connections to other peers. This is why BGP and the other routing protocols are so cool; you can get control of the internet if you just buy some routers and create a way to get advantageous peering relationships. It's an offer you can't refuse.

That's like saying that private property is worthless because the state can take it from you by force.

Technically that's correct, but if that generally doesn't happen then it's not something we have to worry about.

> if that generally doesn't happen

That's a big if. I don't know where you're from, but here in France the State expropriating smaller landowners in order to achieve huge private-public partnerships (i.e. siphoning off public money right into the pockets of private companies, with little if any benefits for society) is common practice: see for example the ZAD in Notre dame des Landes for an example of popular outcry/resistance, or the expropriations and mafia-like intimidation/aggression for the "Grand Stade de Lyon".

Of course, if you're a big landowner and/or close to the circles of power, you have nothing to worry about.

Can IPv4 even be defined as private property if it is nothing more than a few DDN numbers? I could make a Internet 2 that's totally isolated and restart the whole IP allocation process all over again.

Given there is such a thing as intellectual property, where someone literally owns an idea, I'd say owning an address isn't far-fetched at all.

IP only exists because of copyright law, and it would be tricky to apply copyright to an IP if it is not a creative work.