terry

Chapter and Verse: An IP-Addresses is a 32-bit integer, generally expressed in a format of four octet integers separated by periods. In the octet-integer format the value of each octet can range between 0 and 255.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (http://www.ietf.org) has the responsibility to maintain and update standards related to the Internet Protocol. Perhaps a good place to start is Assigned Numbers: RFC-943:

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0943.txt?number=943

Once you understand that then you can browse that site for as much information as you need. Also of note in such a discussion is the original proposal for Internet Subnetting and subnet masks:

0950 Internet Standard Subnetting Procedure. J.C. Mogul, J. Postel. Aug-01-1985.

Finally, you may want to check out the latest and most commonly used method for carving up IP-Addresses: Classless Inter-Domain Routing:

1518 An Architecture for IP Address Allocation with CIDR. Y. Rekhter, T. Li. September 1993.

1519 Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR): an Address Assignment and Aggregation Strategy. V. Fuller, T. Li, J. Yu, K. Varadhan. September 1993.

Terry

P.S.: If you think this is too geeky, stop and consider for a second that Tony Li and Yakov Rekhter are both have 9 figure net worths.