Slashdot Mirror
Pigeons Faster than Internet
An anonymous reader writes "The topic of pigeons and modern technology has come up a number of times now. For instance, we have the Google pigeon rank method, and there have been several April fools hoaxes like this previous story and RFC 2549. Now the Waikato Times is reporting in this story about how pigeons are being used to transfer large amounts of data in a short amount of time. The pigeons have proven to be faster and more relieable than electronic means. However, as you will see from the story there is still the occasional packet loss. This is definitely a case of high bandwidth wireless networking."
The Army reading list
Doesn't poop all over the place. I keed! I keed!
Increasing bandwidth would be cheap enough. Either by more birds or bigger birds. Kind of like servers :)
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
no?
Just reading the slashdot blurb, I get the image of a pigeon with a couple of DVD data discs tied to it's feet, and the resulting attempt to fly is quite comical...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
*writes note saying "ping" and ties to to a pigeon*
This is going to take awhile...
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway"
The concept had just hit a snag however.
Nesting karearea (native falcons) have attacked and killed some of the pigeons mid-flight.
"A pigeon can fly at a cruising speed of 65km/h, 100km/h when pushed," said Mr Andreef. "But native falcons fly at up to 250km/h."
Once he discovered what was happening to his birds Mr Andreef grounded his 50-pigeon operation.
He expected the falcons' nesting season to finish within the next few weeks.
The pigeon communicators better get ready to welcome their new overlords--the Falcons. Can you see the DDoS attacks coming?
I tried playing Quake III over this, but the ping time made it rather frustrating :|
does packet colision occur when the pigeon hole principle comes into effect?
xao
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
Internet packets would be pretty damn quick and reliable too if they were driven my multi-teraflop neural nets!
"the pigeons were 99 per cent reliable"
The thought of pigeons transferring data gives a whole new meaning to dropping packets.
I speculate they would become only 60% reliable when flying over statues, park benches, and human beings.
... swallows ?
(European or otherwise).
Definitely.
follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/moeffju
And how would you do a traceroute on a pigeon?
Remember also the story posted last year - Snail Mail Still Winning The Bandwidth War, where the discussion focused on Netflix.
I think it's an interesting way to compare the two, but it's ultimately pointless. I can carry my 60 gig HD across the room (or the house) in much faster time than I can send all that data over my home network, and that's likely going to be true as both transfer rates and storage capacity increase with time. Pigeons are novel, of course, but as mentioned earlier, packet loss is a bitch.
in pigeons. They will most definitely outlast the internet!
Follow That Feather
Fully aware of the gravity of the situation, Dick Dastardly and his proud men try to eliminate the pigeon with a feather seeking homing missile. the cartoon
MoFscker
..Happens if they go down? how would you do a error correct?
Some software money can't buy. For everything else there's Micros~1
This is crazy. I had absolutely no idea about the use of pigeons. Especially on Google.
--
Matt Keeler
ODP Editor - http://dmoz.org
http://elysium.org
So is a swallow faster or slower?
check this page out for wireless pigeon database access
;-)
no idea if the wireless protocol they are using involves avians in transit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Muttley you snickering floppy eared hound, When courage is needed, you're never around! Those medals you wear on your moth-eaten chest, Should be there for bungling at which you are best!
So, Stop The Pigeon, Stop The Pigeon, Stop The Pigeon, Stop The Pigeon, Stop The Pigeon, Stop The Pigeon, Stop that Pigeon
How?
Nab him! Jab him! Tab him! Grab him!
Stop that pigeon
Now!
You Zilly, stop sneaking it's not worth the chance, For you'll be returned by the seat of your pants! And Klunk, you invent me a thingamybob, That catches that pigeon, or I lose my job!
So, Stop The Pigeon, Stop The Pigeon, Stop The Pigeon, Stop The Pigeon, Stop The Pigeon, Stop The Pigeon
Stop that Pigeon
How?
Nab him! Jab him! Tab him! Grab him!
Stop that pigeon Now!
The mp3
MoFscker
"A pigeon can fly at a cruising speed of 65km/h, 100km/h when pushed," said Mr Andreef. "But native falcons fly at up to 250km/h."
Wow. I realise they won't be going at 250kph for very long (presumably during a swoop down from above) but that's a fantastically fast speed for something of flesh and blood...
"The terminal velocity of a falling human being with arms and legs outstretched is about 120 miles per hour (192 km per hour) - slower than a lead balloon, but a good deal faster than a feather!" (from falling feather)
So I guess until someone straps a jetpack on their back and power-dives, no human will ever experience it...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
50,000 pigeons with a note saying "SYN" tied to them flying to Utah..
Trolling is a art,
Nesting karearea (native falcons) have attacked and killed some of the pigeons mid-flight.
Puts TTL into perspective...
"A pigeon can fly at a cruising speed of 65km/h, 100km/h when pushed," said Mr Andreef. "But native falcons fly at up to 250km/h."
Looks like a perfect opportunity for an upgrade. They just have to train the falcons, and then they'll get a network that's 2.5 times faster, and less likely to be devoured.
But what IS the flightspeed of an unladen swallow^H^H^H^H^H^Hpigeon?
Nick Andreef's pigeons are faster than the internet, but no match for falcons.
Faster than the internet? Let's see:
- The picture shows a Memory Stick. That's at most 1GB (the blue MS like the one on the picture are at most 256MB, but let's be generous),
- the pigeons go at 65 kph,
- they have to travel over 20 km.
That's 20km/65kph = 1107 seconds. Which converts to slightly less than 942 KBps. Now, I don't know what kind of ISPs they have in New Zealand, but 1MBps shouldn't be that hard to achieve! Even using the announced 3GB capacity of a single bird, that's just 3MBps.
Maybe if they had used one of those wireless networks they wouldn't need to feed pigeons (and clean up after them)? Even the falcons go at a mere 10MBps bandwidth!
Shotgun
i just get some duct tape and take my CD-Rs 100 gig harddisks and tape them to a pidgon, then toss them out the window of a highrise...
Yes, these pigeons are fast, But can they bet a 747 loaded with DVDs?
We must report the evil h4X0r falcons to the Dept. of Homeland Security so they can be prosecuted like the terrorists they are.
itadakimasu
What about two pigeons carrying it together? I suppose they could have it on a line... they'd just have to use a strand of tree bark and hold it under the dorsal guiding feathers.
Well why not?
transfer large amounts of data in a short amount of time
I want numbers! KBPS, % packet loss, maximum latency, roundtrip time, number of hops to destination! No stupid "large amounts"!
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Although lacking "quality of service information", the closely related RFC 1149 has been implemented by the Bergen LUG.
SOLDIER #2: Wait a minute! Supposing two pigeons carried it together?
SOLDIER #1: No, they'd have to have it on a line.
SOLDIER #2: Well, simple! They'd just use a strand of creeper!
SOLDIER #1: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
SOLDIER #2: Well, why not?
birdtraq has a posting documenting the 'falcon exploit' describing it as a DOS (denial of seed) attack similar to the 'buckshot' attack, in that not only is the route broken, but the media is eaten. It is noted that even though the carrier may seasonally be reclassified as 'lunch' the data payload may be considered unappetizing and therefore recoverable. Affected users may attempt the alternate SSL (Slow Sparrow Layer) method in hopes of being overlooked. The vulnerability affects owl users of Linux and Windows. In a related story, SCO claims that since it has proved in court that it owns all code ever written, it will be selling licenses on a per egg basis to existing pigeon owners as soon as the massive hummingbird attack on its own server ends.
My metamoderation cancels your moderation
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with tapes.
Have plenty of barbeque sauce on hand. (Although Szechwan peanut sauce is nice too.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
TCP/IP doesn't leave shits all over the place
DVD Ripping, Divx, VCD, SVCD under Linux
and for extra bandwidth, two pigeons could string a load of dvd-rs onto a strand of creeper.
held under the dorsal guiding feathers, naturally...
SOLDIER #1: Where'd you get the data?
ARTHUR: We found it.
SOLDIER #1: Found it? In here? That's impossble!
ARTHUR: What do you mean?
SOLDIER #1: Well, there's no Internet access for miles.
ARTHUR: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?
SOLDIER #1: Are you suggesting data migrates?
ARTHUR: Not at all. It could be carried.
SOLDIER #1: What? A swallow carrying a case DVDs?
ARTHUR: It could grip it by the edge!
SOLDIER #1: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound DVD case.
ARTHUR: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
SOLDIER #1: Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
ARTHUR: Please!
SOLDIER #1: Am I right?
ARTHUR: I'm not interested!
SOLDIER #2: It could be carried by an African swallow!
SOLDIER #1: Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow. That's my point.
SOLDIER #2: Oh, yeah, I agree with that.
ARTHUR: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?!
SOLDIER #1: But then of course a-- African swallows are non-migratory.
SOLDIER #2: Oh, yeah.
SOLDIER #1: So, they couldn't bring the DVDs back anyway.
SOLDIER #2: Wait a minute! Supposing two swallows carried it together?
SOLDIER #1: No, they'd have to have it on a line.
SOLDIER #2: Well, simple! They'd just use a strand of creeper!
SOLDIER #1: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
SOLDIER #2: Well, why not?
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
How many Libraries of Congress can it transfer per second?
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
I certainly hope they're using UDP. TCP would seem to have a bit too high latency to be practical.
Hmm... multicasting would be a bitch.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
Pidgeon porn.
I am not vetrenarian - I have rescued a crashed server before - but I don't think I could save a crashed pigeon...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
This solution makes my think about how many times we want to throw technology at a problem. When the answer is something that is has already been done.
Get Movie Posters
Actually, I think Tom Lehrer is a bigger threat to pigeon network security.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Owls are the way to go!
Does that mean that I would be forced to stop my favorite hooby ?
All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
Every Sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.
-Tom Lehrer
A boy in the park with a paper
From a sandwich on which he had fed
Was about to drop it on the sidewalk
When a pigeon looked up and it said
"Please, keep the park clean for the pigeons.
That is the right thing to do!
Throw all your trash in the basket
And we will say 'Thank Coo' to you!
Keep the park clean for the pigeons,
When you eat candy or gum
Throw what is left in the trashcan
Think of your small feathered chum."
Pigeons hate a mess!
When there is trash on the sidewalk
They can't see breadcrumbs to eat
Crackerjacks get in their feathers (awwww)
Chewing gum sticks to their feet
So put your trash in your pocket
If there's no basket around
Please, keep it to throw away later
Remember that bird on the ground.
Sauer
...a DDoS attack over this looking like a scence out of Hitchcock's The Birds...
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
Bandwith may be OK, but the latency must be horrible. I don't think I'll sign up for Counterstrike using this method... /Tor
- Extremely high bandwidth
- Extremely high reliability
Unfortunantly, poor latency, but still good enough for many uses.650 (MB) x 1024 x 1024 / 24 / 60 / 60 = 7888.59 bytes per second throughput. And that's only for 650 MB on a CD, and only 1 CD in the FedEx envelope. Multiply this "throughput" by how ever many CDR's you can stuff into a FedEx overnight envelope. And by doing so, you do not increase your latency.
So if you have a mountain of data, say from a supercomputer, this may be the fastest (not lowest latency) way to send it to a remote location. Faster than any real Internet connection.
This is also a good way to explain the difference between "bandwidth" and "latency". Good to know when someone is wanting to sell you a "high speed" satellite based internet connection. Just what do you mean by high-speed? Latency or Bandwidth, or both, or niether?
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
pong **** CARRIER LOST
wow.... That phrase has a great deal more irony now.
So I guess until someone straps a jetpack on their back and power-dives, no human will ever experience it...
Michel fournier is planning to attempt to skydive from 130,000 feet and reach supersonic speeds (1200 to 1600 kmph / 750 to 1000 mph).
Nick Piantanida tried and failed to do that in 1965. And all these are unpowered skydives.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Maybe it's a first for digital images, but its been done for years by rafting companies_ in_the_news /news.cgi?rec_id=21
http://www.interbug.com/pigeon/pigeons
and no doubt by various spy groups and such.
(-:Stephonovich:-)
"Who needs reincarnation when we've got parallel universes?" -Me
Once he discovered what was happening to his birds Mr Andreef grounded his 50-pigeon operation."
Whoopsies.
they african or european pigeons?
New York Times: Youth Arrested for Pigeon Tampering
[ name withheld ] was arrested for using an illeagle Pigeon Network Sniffer and accessing huge amounts of data being shuttled by the pigeon network over the last two weeks.
Police say the h4xx0r sat in Central Park, using large amounts of high-quality seed strewn on open ground to re-route the network data stream and hijack the transfer media. The pigeon data was then compromised and copied to the thief's laptop.
Authories say that pigeon network customers became suspicious when network latency increased.
Penises have higher bandwidth than cable modems. [The following found, of course, on the Internet.]
.005 tb/s. Cable modems generally transmit somewhere around 1/5000th of that .
The human genome is about 3,120,000,000 base pairs long, so half of that is in each spermatozoa -- 1,560,000,000 base pairs . Each side of these base pairs can either be an adenine -thymine or a guanine -cytosine bond, and they can be aligned either direction, so there are four choices. Four possibilities for a value means it can be fully represented with two bits; 00 = guanine, 01 = cytosine, and so forth.
The figures that I've read state the number of sperm in a human ejaculation to be anywhere from 50 to 500 million. I'm going to go with the number 200,000,000 sperm cells , but if anyone knows differently, please tell me.
Putting these together, the average amount of information per ejaculation is 1.560*10^ 9* 2 bits * 2.00*10^ 8, which comes out to be 6.24*10 ^17 bits. That's about 78,000 terabytes of data! As a basis of comparison, were the entire text content of the Library of Congress to be scanned and stored, it would only take up about 20 terabytes. If you figure that a male orgasm lasts five seconds , you get a transmission rate of 15,600 tb/s . In comparison, an OC-96 line (like the ones that make up much of the backbone of the internet ) can move
If you consider signal to noise , though, the figures come out much differently. If only the single sperm cell that fertilizes the egg counts as signal , you get (1.560*10^ 9* 2 bits) / 5 s = 6.24*10^ 8bits/s, or somewhere in the neighborhood of 78 Mb/s . Still a great deal more bandwidth than your average cable modem.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
The LUG in my area, Bergen Linux User Group, implemented RFC1149 when Alan Cox visited (of course he was a key part of the project). Pigeons were used in a real-life experiment that had IP implemented over avian carriers. See the details with pictures here.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
You would still have to insert and mount those 50 Memory Sticks. The 3.2gb of data isn't received until it is online. You have to strip the birds, run inside and poke them all into readers, etc.
Once I have that much data on my computer, I can read it almost instantly. Seems someone is overlooking the practicality of this issue just for chatter sake.
The most popular adsl (75% of customers are on it) is limited to 128Kb/s (16KB/s). Why? The price of this is approximately US$30, for 5 or 10GB cap (dependent on ISP). 10GB per month on the full speed is $US450 approximately, and 256Kb/s (32KB/s) is $US25 for 500MB (yes, MB).
So yes, 1Mbit per second here, while not impossible, is hugely expensive, geographically limited, and capped. Not to mention we have an incumbent Network telecomms company who think that 500MB is all customers want, or need.
The Mothership
...you can tell that 95% of the "Score 5" posts are going to be modded "Funny".
Now all we need to combat data loss is a jacket for each pigeon.
RFC 2549 needs a security extension to address man (falcon) in the middle insecurity. I propose encoding multiple packets per UDP-style transmission. The Waitomo network lab can report on the "fodder multiplier" necessary to ensure that network noise consumes only superflous redundant packets. A received ACK packet (similarly multiplied) can be flown back to confirm transmission.
Perhaps a honeypot project can be used to capture attacker packets, baited with pigeons^Wpackets with a low TTL. Once recoded, these "black hat" falcons^Wpackets might be retrained for security enhancement, or experiments with a lower-latency protocol.
--
make install -not war
Jack & the MPAA goons would either ban the pigeons or shoot them down in the name of "copyright protection" ;)
needless to say, I don't think my pings will ever reach the UK from new york :)
I think we should come up with an engineering specification for packet recovery, utilizing freshly-washed cars. My car recovers damn near 100% of lost pigeon packets whenever I park it outside, so the proof-of-concept is valid.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
But once it becomes mainstream the service providers are just gonna put caps on the pigeons making them as slow as standard DSL.
How well will the Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite work over IP over Avian Carriers with QoS? Anyone try it? If you have any implementation tips, particularly for decreasing lag between ZOO and SIMIAN, please post them here.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
I'll begin using this when I Linux network driver to interface is coded into the kernel.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
rfc2549 should use parrots instead of pigeons. There would be numerous advantages since parrots can be trained to memorise additional data, perform simple tasks, and of course you could implement parrot-y checking on all your packets.
872835240
There has to be a good swallow joke to be made from it too. If you know what I mean.
Damn. Just when I'd thought we'd reached the limits.
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Pigeons should solve the reliability problems.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I don't think this has been posted, but there is a picture of one of the pigeons on the Waitomo Adventures Website as well as some more information... like what happens if the pigeon doesn't come back... well you either get a free t-shirt or if the pigeon ever comes back they'll send you your pics. I think it's a pretty good idea, as it gets the job done, and the charge for the photos covers the "overhead" (pigeon feed, coops, new pigeons, etc.)
Just another two cents from the Norm...
:-)
I have posted so I can't moderate, but you made me laugh lol
The Information Pigeon Street... ;o)
P2P now stands for Pegeon to Pr0n!
If you have installed a Bukkake hardware module, you may also access jokes dealing with wireless (over the air) technology.
Vote Technocratic! Government by killer robots!
Humans do fall faster than 250 kph (155 mph).
s t= 385239;search_string=freefall%20speed;#385239
According to www.dropzone.com, " a 165 pound guy in a freefall suit did get 244 mph during the competition."
We don't have to wait for jetpacks, but you will have to change your body position while flying.
http://dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?po
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
Wait a minute! You mean I'm scraping couch change together each month for a non top-of-the-line product??
.com. Can you imagine: new Internet Service Pigeon companies starting up all over the place?
That's it, time to buy some pigeons.
I wonder if pigeons will become the next
Disclaimer: This comment was generated by a Flock of Trained Microsoft Programmers for Aqua_Geek.
It will mean a whole new things now when someone claims their network took a shit on them...
I had a post right here suggesting that pigeons could carry little thumb drives, and apparently it was nuked by Slashdot. So, I did mention a brand name, but that was only so slashdotters would know which one I was talking about...(rest of message deleted by Slashdot Censors)
It's only faster than digital communications if there's no wire anywhere near where you release the pigeon.
Woopie-ding-shit.
Why is this article on slashdot? I don't think a fricking bird can deliver me this page faster than my ISP can, especially when it's below freezing and snowing!!! This is the stupidest article I have ever seen.
Bet RIAA is already hiring falcons to prevent Pigeon P2P!
to AOL cds instead?
Reminds me of a quote I once read:
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of magnetic tapes hurtling down the highway!" -Unknown
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
This article reminded me of this quote:
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon traveling at 60 MPH."
SIGFAULT
The pigeon economy has gained 500000000 new jobs, all in the telecommunications sector. Page 4 Editorial: I am delighted to see that at last, those poor pigeons are being employed. The job market for pigeons has declined for many years, and I long wondered whether the pigeon economy would ever improve. Far be it from me to expect this economic turn around, for which I can only credit our president, George W. Bush, and his clever tax cuts. Now that we have found that pigeons are in fact a technological marvel disguised as the simple city-dwelling fowl we have always thought them to be, the job market for pigeons should improve immensely. But more importantly, it is now that, when I see those pigeons in Central Park, darting around & nibbling on bread crumbs, I can say with a straight face, "Get a job, bums!" Kudos, pigeons!
... New York sure has a lot of pigeons to use for bandwidth!
Now if only we could find a use for cockroaches.
I still maintain the idea that the bandwith of a 800' container ship full of 200 GB hard disks shipped across the Atlantic is huge, e.g. 50 Pb / s.
Ping time, however, is probably pretty low (10 days) and if the ship sinks you'll have 100% packet drop - eh - loss.
I wonder.... Would flying pigs constitute spam...? Would spam only be illegal in Muslim airspace...? Would Jews find the whole "airnet" unkosher...? Would a depot for the "airnet" be called a salon...? Should I try to make real friends and get out? Not more...Just out...
Well cockroaches can survive radiation so it's only natural that they should be used for human shields! you know, in case the poles reverse quicker than expected. spid101
Wouldn't this be incredibly insecure? The data could be easily intercepted. But on the other hand, it seems to be the trend that many companies entrust their confidential files to a bunch of birdbrains, so it might not be that different....
warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.