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First RFC1149 Implementation 143

Crossfire writes: "IP over Avian Carrier (RFC1149) was just a joke, right? It would seem not. The Bergen Linux Users Group has made it a reality! It would also seem that Alan Cox was present for the event too, given by the photos on the page." This is just excellent. Kudos to everyone involved.
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First RFC1149 Implementation

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    Not sure this is something new. It is perhaps an explanation of the 18+ hour ping reply I once got from a nick on efnet's telstra server. But then they are likely using kpp (kangaroo pouched packets).
  • by Anonymous Coward
    this is about to be a +1 Funny slut-fest.

    so um, whatever, this one isn't.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    ...let's implement Napster over the avian carrier IP!
  • by Anonymous Coward
    And ofcourse all the script kitties well be using netcat [avian.org] to sniff packets
  • hmm...seems to be a reaction in the system to last week, where it seemed like _nobody_ was a moderator and most stories had no 4+ comments at all...
    --
    You know, you gotta get up real early if you want to get outta bed... (Groucho Marx)
  • * Ping flood. They would need a lot of pigeons for this.

    * Send an e-mail.

    * Serve a web page.

    * DOS attack! Just release a LOT of pigeons at the same time, most with SYN packets.

    * Read news.

    * Increase the bandwidth by attacking a mini-CDROM to each pigeon.

    --
  • I just thought of another improve ment that could increase the amount of data transfer that the pigeons could carry: if you could figure out a way to get the pigeon to Carry a CD-R, Zip disk or the like, you could transfer much larger packets.
    650 MB in 6319 seconds would be a little better than 64 Bytes....
  • This should take care of the documented problem of Mars not being able to be on the Internet due to TCP/IP delays being too long. The bandwidth depends upon how many pigeons one can fit in a rocket.
  • No! Tying us to physical locations without protection rids us of anonymity and privacy!

    What we need is CPIPsec, a new extension to RFC1149. Genetic engineering should allow us to engineer super-pigeons, capable of decoding encrypted mail addresses so that no one following the pigeon with binoculars can tell where it is going, while keeping the pigeon from getting lost itself. We can use the person's address to generate public PGP (Pigeon-Genius-Privacy) keys for protection of address info, and let the pigeon keep it's private key internally.

    Plus, with advances in stealth technology, we can modify our pigeons to have anti-radar coating on their feathers. With these advances, our pigeons would show up on radar as smaller than a fly, instead of being the size of a bird like those bulky bombers that the US military has come up with. Advanced training can allow our pigeons to know how to use buildings as cover to baffle pursuers.

    We must push through this new safer protocol to keep the U.S. Goverment's "RAPTOR" program from intercepting and recording our messages. Only this will avoid "birdcatcher-in-the-middle" attacks on our security systems. For the sake of freedom, slip in vigillance and become complacent with plainbird messaging. Only avian encryption will protect the foundations of democracy that we depend on.
  • The dinner picture would have been better if it had shown them eating small birds. Equipment recycling.
  • Besides logs and cable trays many of these audit trails will converge at the location of a freshly washed car.
  • Actually falcons will be used as firewalls, if a pigeon's packet is trying to breach security the falcon will take it out.
  • "I also suspect CAT might cause a segment fault."

    Wouldn't that be netcat? ;)

  • Don't forget, if you CLONE all the pigeons in a network from the same DNA, it'll anonymize the birds and foil traffic analysis...

    John

  • Now all we need is someone to implement rfc1217 [faqs.org], "Memo from the Consortium for Slow Commotion Research (CSCR)" which describes an ultra low-speed, ultra robust networking protocol.

    Anyone got a few thousand M1A1 tanks lying around?

  • Hehe - I can picture the headlines:
    System engineer pecked to death, server room burried in pigeon droppings
  • System engineer pecked to death, server room burried in pigeon droppings

    JonKatz writing an essay about the way Pigeon Technology will completely transform the way people look at geeks, and proclaims he knew this was coming ever since he played "Duck Hunt" in the 80's...

    Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
  • You can buy more licenses for a Microsoft product to extend it after purchase. How does one "extend" a castrated pigeon?
  • I mean, is the gene sequence of pidgeons freely available for download?

    Of course. [gdb.org]

    If I find a design flaw in the pidgeon, who do I submit patches to?

    god@heaven [mailto]

    He answers all prayers, you know.

  • Actually, all transmitted ping replies did come through. If you read the story on the page, it says that the replying end had six pigeons, and two escaped without payload.

    The reason we transmitted 9 pings is that we had to keep ping running to be able to feed the replies back. If we had stopped it we wouldn't get the stats.

  • There is always room for improvement over existing protocols.

    Yea.. Microsoft said the same thing and now every message I get from a outlook client has html embeded in it even though its marked as plain text...

    (Sorry.. thats been a gripe of mine latley..)
  • I don't know.

    Eeeeeeearggggh...........

  • The penguins in the aquarium are part of the underwater IP working group.
  • Hey you could use these to get the internet to Antarticia. Sure latency would be measured in weeks. But it would still be their fastest method of communication to civilization.
  • for LAN, implement fast ground birds, like roadrunners, or perhaps emus (those things are frickin' fast!)?
  • This is one of the benefits of this transmission fabric not pointed out in the RFC. The process of natural evolution will ensure the next release of the transport will include organic modifications correcting design flaws. Unfortunately, this approach lends itself to comparison to Microsoft's product upgrade, new release and patching process. Especially considering the common user has no avenue through which to suggest enhancments or design flaws.
  • We had 8 pigeons at the pinging end and for some reason only six at the other. After the first four replies were sent, the remaining two pigeons escaped, leaving us in the 'carrier lost' state.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30, 2001 @08:01AM (#256826)
    What? You expect someone to say something insightful about pigeon-based IP?
  • by hawk ( 1151 ) <hawk@eyry.org> on Monday April 30, 2001 @07:29AM (#256827) Journal
    *duh* With a quai, of course!


    :)

  • by Julian Morrison ( 5575 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @06:38AM (#256828)
    1. Either:

    1.1. Use barcodes instead of OCR, or

    1.2. Use magtape instead of paper.

    2. Transmit redundant packets to cut lossage.

    3. Use better trained pigeons.

    4. Secure packets against rain damage using cling film (saran wrap).

    --
  • Just use 11-Pound Model Plane Vs. The Atlantic [slashdot.org] as the carrier and you have a new method for cross-continent communications!

    Ok, so the ping times are gonna suck and having to wait months for a new packet to be constructed if the previous failed also isn't too good.

    "How come I didn't get that email from Bob?"
    "Oh, the model plane lost a wing half way across the ocean, sorry."

    Geoff
  • by Levine ( 22596 ) <levine@ g o a t s e . cx> on Monday April 30, 2001 @01:52PM (#256830) Homepage
    I will no longer be able to make jokes about TCP/IP over carrier piegons in jest! Curse you, RFC! CURSE YOU!
  • by Vryl ( 31994 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @09:22AM (#256831) Journal
    Heh... problem with hacking too, you could lure them down with food or whatever (or just catch them whilst asleep during long distance IP) read the message and let them go - or even change said message - and nobody would know.

    It's just TCP/IP transport layer. You can add whatever encryption and authentication protocols on top as you like.

    There is no theoretical difference between this transport and any other (ethernet anyone?) ... to the application it is all the same ... albeit perhaps a little slower ...

  • by passion ( 84900 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @06:54AM (#256832)

    A DOS attack of the Avian carrier. Clip their wings, perhaps?

    I would picture a DOS as being where you send *armies* of your own pigeons to the secondary base camp to elbow out the legitimate pigeons from dropping their messages.

    Perhaps a herd of cats invading the receiving base camp might deter packets from landing, and cause bad pings.

  • by magi ( 91730 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @05:19AM (#256833) Homepage Journal
    WOW! At least an IP protocol where bugs (such as mosquitos) actually benefit the transmission!

    I just loved the ping reports:

    $ ping -i 450 10.0.3.1
    PING 10.0.3.1 (10.0.3.1): 56 data bytes
    64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=6165731.1 ms
    64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=3211900.8 ms
    64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=5124922.8 ms
    64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=6388671.9 ms
    9 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 55% packet loss
    round-trip min/avg/max = 3211900.8/5222806.6/6388671.9 ms

    What happened with the 5 packets? Was the "carrier lost" or perhaps eaten? Or did it just "drop the packet?"

  • Yes. Because the people who write RFC's joke around in such non-professional way means that RFC's can be ignored with no loss.

    Especially RFC's about routers. Those can be ignored and your router will still work with all future network protocols.

    Or perhaps, while one or two RFC's are meant to be funny, the other RFC's are not. RFC's are often the accepted standard though not always.

    That may be very hard to understand at first but I think it's true none the less.

  • by Jakdaw ( 103263 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @10:31AM (#256835)
    Someones port-scanning us! BANG! BANG! BANG!
  • ..at least we won't be needing IPV6 if we do this.. in fact we won't need IP at all.. we could just use good old zip codes for the addressing schema.. in fact why use birds, we already have a transport system for that.. the Royal Mail / UPS / DHL / USPS..

    So we translate all our communication data into TCP datagrams.. print them out.. stick them in envelopes... write the zip code and house number on the outside.. genius!

    ah, no wait, that's a letter isn't it.

    Al.
    sapstuff.com [sapstuff.com]
  • by Misch ( 158807 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @05:50AM (#256837) Homepage
    I certainly feel sorry for anyone who get slashdotted

    Methinks they would get splatdropped...
  • by shokk ( 187512 ) <ernieoporto AT yahoo DOT com> on Monday April 30, 2001 @06:34AM (#256838) Homepage Journal

    This gives a new meaning to TTL for packets. =) How many uses do you get out of one of those poor pidgeons? It'd be interesting to see network traffic by looking up and seeing how big the cloud of birds is. What happens to the bird when you have a resend or a NAK?

    No Misha, this is packet 1527. Packet 1257 is next. Find it in that huge pile.

    or

    OK, we scanned in 3000 packets, and it's a page from goatse.cx. Thanks guys!

    or

    How come we scanned all those packets and the output is garbled? Scan them again...

    Have to watch out that you don't get cats sniffing the packets or that the packet falls out of the sky from heat exhaustion. Seriously, this is an example of doing something because it could be done. What good is this in an age were people turn their nose up at 300 baud? They could have put that bird to some use afterwards and eaten it. =)

  • by crazney ( 194622 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:17AM (#256839) Homepage Journal
    to fix the ipv4/6 problem.

    we can destroy the internet as it is know, and use these little pigeons (maybe penguins that fly would be better) as our tunnel...

    this way, everything would be almost to slow todo, except for the old schoolers that are used to there old 200bps modems..
    now, everyone else decides to drop the internet, and we only have several people using it now..

    then we will let it grow... but what will happen? i reckon itl end up like it is now.. again.
    (a) some people see a chance for it making money
    (b) they set up a 'bsp' or bird service provider
    (c) this bsp has a user base of about 20
    (d) several other small bsp's start. they hub together in a very unordered and unplanned fation, where each bird goes to a particular address, in its memory. unfortunatly the memory of pigioeons only holds 5, pengiuns actually hold 7.
    (e) someone decides that the Australian's (me) want bird access.. and trains some pigeons to travel between us and au. Unfortunatly, most pigeons die because of the over loaded packages they are carying, bird loss is at 90%
    (f) after a decade or so, despite its slowness, bird net is rocking along, with a whole 1000. Since the memory of a bird is maxed at 7 address', they have to start again. and where back to square one.
  • by DirtyDevo ( 252137 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @06:47AM (#256840)
    Did anyone contact the author of the RFC to let him know the protocol has been implemented? He's listed as: David Waitzman EMail: dwaitzman@BBN.COM Maybe someone should send him a pingflock....
  • by boltar ( 263391 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:20AM (#256841)
    Looks like the guys are egging each other on in those pics. But I guess if things go wrong they literally can't wing it! Still, its something to crow about though I wouldn't want to be the salesman who has to hawk it as theres not much chance of it ruffling any feathers down at the likes of Cisco. Ok, ENOUGH puns!
  • by flynn_nrg ( 266463 ) <mmendez@gma i l .com> on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:24AM (#256842) Homepage Journal
    Seeing this makes me think of other protocols that I haven't seen implemented yet such as IP over snail mail or IP over Tam Tam (maybe using a morse encoding), even tcp/ip over voice, so you could use VoIP and then IPoV recursively.
  • by deran9ed ( 300694 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:52AM (#256843) Homepage
    2 years ago as a joke I wrote a vulnerability mock up on Packet Pigeons [antioffline.com] had I known the RFC existed I would've tried to make it funnier.

  • by flakac ( 307921 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @04:32AM (#256844)
    When Reuters was first starting out, there were certain areas where the telegraph hadn't been run through yet. So until the lines were completed, they had to send messages (packets) via carrier pigeons. It's by no means a new concept.
  • by madvid ( 313696 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @07:34AM (#256845) Homepage

    Yes, he has been informed. Or maybe he found it here (or somewhere else himself).

    According to David Waitzman himself, this is indeed the first implementation of his "joke" RFC. (However, someone in Australia asked him about it some years ago, but he never heard back from them again, so it's likely they cancelled.)

  • by actiondan ( 445169 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:02AM (#256846)

    Or they'll install doors at the end stations which only allow Microsoft pigeons through
  • by Tachys ( 445363 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:24AM (#256847)
    What if Slashdot started using these thing.

    I certainly feel sorry for anyone who get slashdotted
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30, 2001 @09:04AM (#256848)
    ... but it seems to be slashdotted already. I guess they need more birdwidth.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30, 2001 @05:08AM (#256849)
    So what you're saying is that sending messages by carrier pigeons isn't a new concept? What a clever observation ;) Thanks for sharing this information with us.
  • Hmm... IP over UPS truck...
  • by troc ( 3606 ) <troc@ma[ ]om ['c.c' in gap]> on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:12AM (#256851) Homepage Journal
    Heh... problem with hacking too, you could lure them down with food or whatever (or just catch them whilst asleep during long distance IP) read the message and let them go - or even change said message - and nobody would know.

    I guess you could rig the package to explode if tampered with. Maybe for long distance, we could use a modified avian carrier such as an albatross.

    Troc

    Great, someone ate the packets again.
  • by Vegard ( 11855 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @05:38AM (#256852)
    I have an explanation for this. We had 8 carriers for one direction, 6 for the return direction. I started a ping with 7.5 minutes interval, and envisioned having 2-3 packets in the loop. But, the neighbor had just let his pigeons out. Our pigeons seemed to want to fly with his pigeons for a while. Thus, at one time we had 5 packets in that flock.

    When they finally broke off from the flock, they all broke off more or less simultaneously. This created some chaos at the other end. Simply said, they forgot to close the door of the pigeon cage, so the 2 last pigeons of 6 escaped.

    We could have had 6 replies in maximum, but I had to let it go to 9 packet sent to get all the replies back. 8 of those packets was sent to the remote sent, for the 9th, we didn't have a pigeon to carry it. And alas, loosing two pigeons at the remote site, we only had 4 return pigeons.

    - Vegard

  • by Vegard ( 11855 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:07AM (#256853)
    www.blug.linux.no should have both cpu and
    bandwith that can withstand som slashdotting.

    However, there is a mirror at http://www.pvv.org/rfc1149/

    - Vegard, member of BLUG and the CPIP WG.
  • by Jose ( 15075 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @05:24AM (#256854) Homepage
    this way, everything would be almost to slow todo, except for the old schoolers that are used to there old 200bps modems..

    what?!? I think 200 Birds Per Second is pretty fast!!

  • by SpinyNorman ( 33776 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @07:19AM (#256855)
    No Misha, this is packet 1527. Packet 1257 is next. Find it in that huge pile.

    Not a problem actually - TCP/IP takes care of packet order and loss.

    This could actually be a genuiinely useful form of wartime or covert communications, as long as you use encryption on the link. Just imagine anyone trying to make sense of all the encrypted TCP/IP packets (literally) flying around, and imagine their frustration when any packet loss they manage to cause doesn't affect the reliability of the communication channel.

    Coming soon hamster-IP for your ground-based communications!

  • I have a fellow that works for me named H.C. Phillips. One day when we had an ISDN user down, I told him that if we couldn't get it fixed he would have to write down all their packets and drive them back to the shop for input.

    We called it "HCP/IP."

    -Omar

  • ... no one wants to port scan a pigeon, let alone sniff it's packets.

    BTW, why are we seeing so many posts moderated so high recently? I only want to see a few posts per article, and now you get 15 at +5. Did Taco make everyone a moderator full-time or something?

    not_cub

  • by enneff ( 135842 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:43AM (#256858) Homepage
    I imagine that shortsightedness on behalf of the authors of rfc1149 meant that they'd specified duct-tape, when they didn't know that it would be inhumane to do so. Carrier pidgeons do not take kindly to having duct tape attached and then subsequently ripped off, not to mention the fact that the packet itself could become torn in the process.

    There is always room for improvement over existing protocols.

  • by Darth Turbogeek ( 142348 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:26AM (#256859) Homepage
    Service pack for Pidgeon ver 1.0 has been announced by the spokeangel for the developer, God. Several flaws have been fixed, however, spokedemon for Hell have already found a security hole, a DOS attack dubbed birdseed.

    A Hot fix is due out next week.
  • by Cerlyn ( 202990 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @06:52AM (#256860)

    Let me say this once before everyone goes nuts:

    I never said that RFC == standard.

    Read what I wrote. I said "well on its way." I did not say "definitely will become." Just because I did not explicitly say "but may not reach that point" doesn't mean it that isn't implied.

    RFCs tended to be well documented protocols and procedures that tend to head towards standards or at least widely used methods. Most protocols never even reach this point. If a person or group writes an RFC, they believe they have something worthy of a larger audience.

    And yes, I am aware of the multitude of humorous standards in there (IMPS, RFC 2795 [ietf.org], comes instantly to mind, RFC 1097 [ietf.org] or "subliminal telnet messaging" being an earlier one).

    Still, my point in that post was that many RFCs are widely used as if they were standards even though they are not stands. Internet Relay Chat is RFC's 1459, 2810, 2811, 2812, and 2813, all marked "Experimental" or "Informational". Their headers do state they are not information standards, but this has not stopped over 10 IRC networks, dozens of client programs and tens of thousands of users from using them. Likewise, RFC 1413 [ietf.org], a.k.a. the ident protocol, has been a proposed standard for seven years, yet is included in every UNIX-based operating system. Your secure shell products (SSH) use a protocol that has a working group [ietf.org], but they have not even reached the RFC point in the process!

    Just because someone says something is not a standard does not mean it is not widely adopted. Personally, I want to implement RFC 2324 [ietf.org], better known as the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol :)

  • by popeyethesailor ( 325796 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @04:01AM (#256861)

    I can see it now.. Someone just started a bird-farm, instead of a server farm, to index MP3 requests..

    wait..the RIAA has already sued the bird-farm owner..

    Gives me a great new idea. If each one of us had 4 pigeons, and we pool them together, cant we beat Freenet or Gnutella ?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30, 2001 @02:56AM (#256862)
    drop any 'packets'?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:03AM (#256863)
    ... consist of a 12-gauge shotgun and some birdshot ? Would an IP hijacking session be achieved by using an Irish setter to locate the dropped avian carrier ? I'll stop now :)
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:07AM (#256864)
    african or european?
  • by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:11AM (#256865) Homepage
    Broadcast support isn't a problem; just have a whole bunch of pigeons pull a large packet banner for everybody on the ground to see...

    /Janne
  • by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @02:57AM (#256866) Homepage
    I head Msft already has an "improved" version in the works involving predatory hawks - your data doesn't get thru any faster but the UI is more attractive and it just naturally interfers with pidgeon carriers, causing packet droppings.
  • by Eivind ( 15695 ) <eivindorama@gmail.com> on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:16AM (#256867) Homepage
    Did indeed honour us by being present. I just hope he had as much fun as we did. This all took place saturday. On Thursday there was a lecture by Alan, and also he had the opportunity to go feed the penguins in the local aquarium.

    Pictures fro mthe last event are available here [ii.uib.no]

  • by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @09:06AM (#256868)
    No. Falcons are lean and fast. They are also efficient hunters. Microsoft will be using turkeys bred for the US holiday of Thanksgiving, for several reasons:
    • The birds name is synonymous with the usual quality of MS products.
    • They are so bloated with overfeeding (overfeaturing) that they can't stand up without breaking their own legs.
    • They make a big stink, and a lot of noise, but aren't really effective at anything but dying.
    The process will be simple: MS will purchase several of the air cannons used to launch frozen poultry at aircraft windows to test for breaking point, and use those to launch the MS TIEE (Turkey Internet Enhanced Enabler) stack at any and all CPIP packets which get too close to Redmond, or any other MS campuses. And probably any QWest property now as well.

    --
  • by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @09:25AM (#256869)
    So was that spam that hit my windscreen on the way to work today? I'm NOT gonna "packet-sniff" it to see if was a commercial ad or not, but it sure as hell was unsolicited.

    --
  • Latency (time to deliver the data to destination) might be a problem though...

    Not to mention out-of-order packet reception. I think we could have a rather large issue hunting for pigeon #35431 in the Great Flock. And of course, the risk of packet loss is much higher. Farmers out in their fields with shotguns have a lot lower chance of disrupting your ethernet connection but could take out pigeons #234, 54245 and 6644 with one good blast of 00 buck. Just imagine of the retransmission requests.. *shudder*

    Suckey as it is, I'll stick with my csma/cd, thank you. Though it doesn't have that soothing 'coo.' :)

  • by ASCIIMan ( 47627 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:14AM (#256871)
    This actually appears to be the first non-compliant usage of RFC 1149 [ietf.org]. RFC 1149 specifically indicates that "A band of duct tape is used to secure the datagram's edges." In this implementation, it is clear from the photographic evidence [linux.no] that duct tape was not used in the test.

    I propose that once testing has been completed on a fully standards complient version of RFC 1149, testing on the implementation of RFC 2549 [ietf.org], or "IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service", should begin. This extention of RFC 1149 adds many important features, such as quality of service, security, and traffic shaping.

  • by Velox_SwiftFox ( 57902 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @04:34AM (#256872)
    Worse, quantum encryption would be impossible, doe to the carrier's inability to fly in an entangled state.
  • by gazdean ( 71600 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .naedjg.> on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:53AM (#256873)
    He meant open sauce.

    Take a bird, open some sauce and
    then cook it.
  • CPIP could allow for as high a bandwidth (amount of data sent in a given time) as you wish: just send an enormous number of pigeons at once! Latency (time to deliver the data to destination) might be a problem though: 2 hour ping times, as observed at the event.

    As the saying goes: there is no higher bandwidth link than a UPS truck fully loaded with DVDs...

  • > Not to mention out-of-order packet reception. I think we could have a rather large issue hunting for pigeon #35431 in the Great Flock.

    TCP/IP is perfectly able to deal with packet loss and re-ordering, so no problem there. Of course, this might cause some performance drop, unless selective acknowledge (SACK) is used.

    > Farmers out in their fields with shotguns have a lot lower chance of disrupting your ethernet connection but could take out pigeons #234, 54245 and 6644 with one good blast of 00 buck.

    True enough. However, consider this: roadworkers have a lot lower chance of permanently stopping your pigeons from flying but could take out your spiffy new phiber optic link with an appropriately placed "dig" of their backhoe... And don't talk about backup connectivity: everybody knows that usually the backup fiber runs within the same duct as the primary.

  • by EyesOfNostradamus ( 75825 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:14AM (#256876) Homepage
    but rather audit trails [linux.no]. It's even documented in the RFC:

    Audit trails are automatically generated, and can often be found on logs and cable trays
  • by AtrN ( 87501 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @04:38AM (#256877) Homepage
    This is actually a serious point. In order to meet timeouts specified in numerous protocols (e.g, TCP) the birds need to travel pretty quickly, either that or your network radius is severly limited. I much prefer to think of large networks which gives us reason to modify the network media a bit. Afterall Ethernet is now running at a thousand times its original speed. Why not pigeons? With our increasing abilities in genetic manipulation (Mephisto, I hear you) this would make an excellent project.

    Another time related problem is the speed of attaching the datagrams to the pigeons and then reading them. We need pigeons with detachable legs so we can easily pop the data on and off of the transport mechanism (a bit like a physical implementation of mbufs, the pigeon being analogous to an Ethernet frame).

    We could try little rockets or shooting them out of cannons (reduces latency) but this can lead to excessive packet loss if you try to push the birds past their limits. Routing is also an issue, you've got to give them some initial aim otherwise all that energy is just wasted. Topological routing is now appearing which could come in handy for this but does anyone have a driver for a turret mounted pigeon cannon handy?

  • by nick255 ( 139962 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @04:01AM (#256878)
    > www.blug.linux.no should have both cpu and
    > bandwith that can withstand som slashdotting.
    Not if they are using CPIP!
  • by zsazsa ( 141679 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @05:23AM (#256879) Homepage
    I would imagine that a ping flood attack would look like something out of Hitchcock's The Birds [itesm.mx]...
    (don't worry, not a goatse.cx link..)

    zsazsa
  • by Darth Turbogeek ( 142348 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @02:55AM (#256880) Homepage
    A DOS attack of the Avian carrier. Clip their wings, perhaps?

    I also suspect CAT might cause a segment fault.
  • by smack_attack ( 171144 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:01AM (#256881) Homepage
    What's the air speed velocity of an unladen packet?

    -if not me, someone else.

    ---
  • by NullLogic ( 179891 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:18AM (#256882) Homepage
    How secure is this, really? I mean, is the gene sequence of pidgeons freely available for download? If I find a design flaw in the pidgeon, who do I submit patches to?
  • by davejhiggins ( 188370 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:26AM (#256883) Homepage
    Does this mean anyone filtering packets using a Firewall could be prosecuted on charges of cruelty to animals? Dave
  • by dstone ( 191334 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @08:20AM (#256884) Homepage
    See for yourself...

    Pic here [linux.no].

    "Hey Alan, stop bogarting. Pass it!"
  • by egjertse ( 197141 ) <slashdot@YEATSfutt.org minus poet> on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:01AM (#256885) Homepage
    Really great! Now, there are a few points to CPIP that bothers me a little.
    • Packet loss - hunting season could cause major disruptions to services.
    • Lack of broadcast/multicast support
    • Limited packet size
    • Mandatory source-routing could be a problem (I always configure my Linux kernel to drop source routed packages)
    • Mating season could cause abnormal round trip delays
    On the positive side, packet collisions are history - unless someone implements CPIP in a LAN that is...
  • by MRossland ( 216576 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @02:53AM (#256886) Homepage
    ... to eat the pigeons of other, smaller and open-source companies?
  • by deebaine ( 218719 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @05:59AM (#256887) Journal
    Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
    inet addr:10.0.3.2 P-t-P:10.0.3.1
    collisions:0
    RX bytes:88 (88.0 b) TX bytes:168 (168.0 b)

    You know, I never thought of packet collisions as really funny. Now, somehow it seems much more entertaining.

    -db
  • by ConsumedByTV ( 243497 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @02:58AM (#256888) Homepage
    One thing I really like about the open source movement is that never ceases to make me happy.

    This is a great example of community acting in a fun and open way.

    Not for greed, but because its fun.
    A sense of community that I don't see in the rest of my life (Where I live, where I work).
    It makes life worth living when you enjoy it.


    Are you on the Sfglj [sfgoth.com] (SF-Goth EMail Junkies List) ?
  • by lushman ( 251748 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @02:51AM (#256889)
    Well, maybe not, but anyway ...
  • by SomeoneYouDontKnow ( 267893 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:51AM (#256890)
    ...to accommodate penguins, since they can't fly. They can swim, but I don't think the paper and duct tape will hold up too well under water.
  • by The Smith ( 305645 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:02AM (#256891) Homepage
    They will presumably find some method of extending the generic pigeon design to make it incompatible with everybody else's pigeons. To make a closed-source pigeon, they will castrate all of their pigeons (after taking a DNA sample) to ensure none of their 'trade secrets' are spread without a license to pigeons not under their control.
  • by madvid ( 313696 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:40AM (#256892) Homepage

    A funny little anecdote: One of the last frames (i.e. pigeons) we released actually crashed into a neighbor's bathroom window, after which Alan Cox himself commented; "Oh no, windows causing problems again." - Just thought I'd share that. :)

    (BTW, I'm not officially a BLUG member, but was cordially invited by a friend of mine - thanks Karlmag! And hi mom!;)

  • by actiondan ( 445169 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:38AM (#256893)
    A DOS attack could also involve taking over 1000 pigeon lofts and sending 10,000 pigeons to an unfortuante recipient.
  • by McCarrum ( 446375 ) <mark.limburg@NOsPAM.gmail.com> on Monday April 30, 2001 @05:00AM (#256894)
    I've tried to read webpages in some countries which would have been faster if they did use a pigeon. Sitting here in my office, I envision my message trying to be sent along an old goat track, on the back of the trusty village-owned three-legged billygoat.

    --
    McCarrum!

  • Actually,

    I think the quote is:

    "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum - Computer Networks
  • by IAmHansemann ( 446889 ) on Monday April 30, 2001 @03:47AM (#256896)
    This actually appears to be the first non-compliant usage of RFC 1149. RFC 1149 specifically indicates that "A band of duct tape is used to secure the datagram's edges."

    Nope, you are wrong: the duct tape is only a informal suggestion. Otherwise the statement would be: "A band of duct tape MUST BE used to secure the datagram's edges"

    SCNR :-)

Neutrinos have bad breadth.

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