Slashdot Mirror
First RFC1149 Implementation
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.
... but it seems to be slashdotted already. I guess they need more birdwidth.
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...
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.
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
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
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.
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!!
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
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!
We called it "HCP/IP."
-Omar
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
q='echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"';s=\';b=\\;echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"
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.
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.
"Old Rallydrivers never die - they just fail to book in on time"
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, comes instantly to mind, RFC 1097 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, 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, 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, better known as the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol :)
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 ?
drop any 'packets'?
african or european?
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
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
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.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Pictures fro mthe last event are available here
- 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.--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
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.
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
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.' :)
-'fester
I propose that once testing has been completed on a fully standards complient version of RFC 1149, testing on the implementation of RFC 2549, 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.
Worse, quantum encryption would be impossible, doe to the carrier's inability to fly in an entangled state.
He meant open sauce.
Take a bird, open some sauce and
then cook it.
"You can catch flies till the cows come home, but wasps are a totally different kettle of fish."
As the saying goes: there is no higher bandwidth link than a UPS truck fully loaded with DVDs...
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?
I would imagine that a ping flood attack would look like something out of Hitchcock's The Birds ...
(don't worry, not a goatse.cx link..)
zsazsa
A DOS attack of the Avian carrier. Clip their wings, perhaps?
I also suspect CAT might cause a segment fault.
"Old Rallydrivers never die - they just fail to book in on time"
What's the air speed velocity of an unladen packet?
-if not me, someone else.
---
Hammer of Truth
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?
Does this mean anyone filtering packets using a Firewall could be prosecuted on charges of cruelty to animals? Dave
See for yourself...
Pic here.
"Hey Alan, stop bogarting. Pass it!"
- 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...^]:wq!^M
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.
-dbOne 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 (SF-Goth EMail Junkies List) ?
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Well, maybe not, but anyway ...
...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.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
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!;)
--
McCarrum!
Robert Anton Wilson