RFC 1918 nonsensical sentence

Question

I am doing an intern and now under a training. The instructor suggested us of reading the RFCs involved with the topics covered in class.

In RFC 1918, they say "An enterprise that decides to use IP addresses out of the address defined in this document can do so without any coordination with IANA or an Internet registry" under the section '3. Private Address Space' as in the picture below.

I presume by "the address defined in this document" they mean Private Address Space.

Or is my understanding incorrect?

Answer 1

RFCs often have mistakes or typos, and if one does, there is the Errata. You should always look at any errata that exist for an RFC.

RFC 1918 Errata explains:

RFC 1918, "Address Allocation for Private Internets", February 1996
Source of RFC: cidrd ()

Errata ID: 1419
Status: Held for Document Update
Type: Editorial
Publication Format(s) : TEXT
Reported By: Jack Parker
Date Reported: 2008-05-07
Held for Document Update by: Pete Resnick

Section 3 says:

An enterprise that decides to use IP addresses out of the address
space defined in this document can do so without any coordination
with IANA or an Internet registry.

It should say:

An enterprise that decides to use IP addresses within the address 
space defined in this document can do so without any coordination 
with IANA or an Internet registry.

Notes:

There appears to be a slight difference in interpretation with the existing phrase, "out of the address space." This 'could' be interpreted to mean "outside of the address space," hence changing the meaning of the entire statement, if the section's context is not considered. In the interest of clarification, would it be possible to rephrase this particular section to "within the address space?" I'm aware of one case in particular where attorneys argued over this issue ad nauseum, regardless of the network architects attempting to intervene.