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."

Comments

Rimshot

[tcopeland]

[...] the pigeons were 99 per cent reliable, Mr Andreef said. "They also work for peanuts."

Heh.

Re:Rimshot

[jafiwam]

Also note, you should make sure the firewall outside your pidgeon coop can see color, as you don't want any of those evil bit containing pidgeons through the door or you may be forced to restart the data transfer as your data packets are scrambled and pooped out in little piles.

Nore, typically the evil bit comes in the form of a red tail, talons, and a hooked beak. Occasionally it comes on all fours, with a red furry coat, fluffy tail and black tips on it's ears.

Re:Rimshot

[Wellspring]

You laugh, but check this out. Drug cartels in Pakistan are using carrier pigeons to route messages. The logic is obvious: any landline medium is expensive and can be traced. And any RF technology can be intercepted by American spy satellites.

If a signal (ie pigeon) is caught, the signal isn't received by the intended receipient. You can also send signals without the sender knowing the physical location of the other party-- useful for security.

Actually, now what I think of it, that is the area that bin Laden is believed to be hiding out in. If I were him, I'd be using carrier pigeons and dead-drops to communicate with my followers. I'm not sure if we're even looking for them, but even if we were, finding a species of bird in those mountains? Separating it from the non-pigeon birds? Catching the RIGHT pidgeon (if too many pidgeons disappear from being intercepted, you stop talking for a while)?

Navajo was devastatingly effective in WWII. There was a plan to drop bats equipped with timed incendiaries-- a town was devastated in a test using this weapon. Don't underestimate steam-punk methods.

Re:Rimshot

[raehl]

If a signal (ie pigeon) is caught, the signal isn't received by the intended receipient.

Or after you're done reading the message, you could just put it back on the pigeon and let the pigeon go again.....

So

[Pingular]

Increasing bandwidth would be cheap enough. Either by more birds or bigger birds. Kind of like servers :)

Mental imagery

[TWX]

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...

Re:Mental imagery

[loucura!]

Are suggesting that DVDs migrate?

Yeah...

[MikeXpop]

*writes note saying "ping" and ties to to a pigeon*

This is going to take awhile...

Still true

[msgmonkey]

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway"

Re:Still true

[Pingular]

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway"
-- Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Re:Still true

[inburito]

Or, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a flock of pigeons with blue-laser dvds strapped on to their feet flying on the sky."

Re:Still true

[halo8]

I dont..

i got a friend that lives a 1/2 hour away.. hour round trip.. we like to exchange warez files.. CD's ISO's 750-1.4Gb. FTP over cable or DSL.. dosent beat me in my car

Re:Still true

[SurgeonGeneral]

+4 on that post? Wow. You have singled out an author for a quote that comes in many different shapes and forms. The motivation for doing so is hard for me to comprehend, but I'd like to show you some other forms of it, including the original :

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station
wagon full of tapes.
- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS

heres some more variations :

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of magtapes.";

"the highest bandwidth transatlantic data channel was a freighter fully-loaded with punch cards."

"the bandwidth of magtape and a pickup truck." (c. 1973, DEC, Maynard MA);

and,

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a kid on a moped with a backpack full of CDs.";

finally,

Dai Davies, director of Dante, which provides high-speed networks to Europe's research institutes, said that before now the highest data transfer speed was achieved by putting the tapes in a van and driving them to where they need to be analysed.

Delivery vans can carry lots of tapes at the same time which means that Europe's roads have a relatively high bandwidth. "You can send a few hundred megabytes per second through DHL," he said.
- BBC News, 16 September 2003.;

Now I thank you for finding one of the many people who have spoken a permutation of the quote, but really it is quite a superfluous and trivial effort. Especially considering we all have the same access to Google that you do. =\ Tanenbaum's version appeared in 1988, but as you can see the line was spoken as early as 1973.

In conclusion, singling out a person who might have spoken the sentance is pointless. And adds little to the conversation.

Hmmm

[mandalayx]

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?

Games

[fredrikj]

I tried playing Quake III over this, but the ping time made it rather frustrating :|

Re:Games

[daeley]

Now we know the real reason "Duke Nukem Forever: Rats of the Air" was delayed.

so....

[xao gypsie]

does packet colision occur when the pigeon hole principle comes into effect?

xao

Pigeons Dropping Packets

[fastdecade]

"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.

How about ....

[Anonymous Coward]

... swallows ?

(European or otherwise).

Netflix

[The Good Reverend]

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.

cartoon throwback

[segment]

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

One hell of a rush

[Space cowboy]

"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.

Imagine..

[grub]

50,000 pigeons with a note saying "SYN" tied to them flying to Utah..

Re:Imagine..

[herrvinny]

And the resulting reply, as 50,000 pigeons drop down to the ground, going "ACK" after getting shot....

On "Packet" Loss

[Anonymous Coward]

Nesting karearea (native falcons) have attacked and killed some of the pigeons mid-flight.

Puts TTL into perspective...

Time for an upgrade

[Stalus]

"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.

Faster than the internet?

[Trbmxfz]

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!

Re:Faster than the internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one line. Just like broadband is made of several smaller lines with individual limits, this pigeon network is made of several pigeons which can EACH carry a packet.
It even mentions a fleet of 50 pigeons in the article. So if they only had 256MB memory sticks, like the one in the picture, that would be 3.2 GB.
Again, if you read the article rather than skimmed, it mentioned that the flight time was six minues (600 seconds) That would be equal to about 5.3 MBps. Good luck getting that kind of transfer rate for as much as those pigeons cost them.

Re:Faster than the internet?

[Trbmxfz]

I don't know of any 1MBps (8 Mbps) ISP that is cheap outside of Korea...

Japan maybe? But indeed, I goofed; buying several megabit links may not be cheap in most countries (and is apparently impractical in the case explained in the article).

Wireless (802.11) links over 20km get a lot of attention on Slashdot but are very uncommon

What? Are you implying that what is said on Slashdot doesn't always closely reflect reality? Man, I'm disappointed!

Also, assuming fifty falcons, carrying three one-gig memory sticks each, we get up to a whopping 4 gigabits per second. I don't know if I'd let birds handle that many memory cards (they are expensive), though.

And don't get me started on the ping times, as others have mentioned already.

Re:Faster than the internet?

[Trbmxfz]

six minues (600 seconds)

Sorry, I didn't know they used the metric system for minutes too! In the US of A, six minutes are only 360 seconds :-).

if you read the article rather than skimmed

Since their figures don't seem to be consistent, I had to discard some of them; 20km at 65kph should take about 18 minutes, not 6. Otherwise, you're of course right: they wouldn't do it if it weren't cheaper than the actual network connection they can get.

Packet loss=

[vwjeff]

Shotgun

s/swallow/pigeon/ (was Re:Mental imagery)

[BabyDave]

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?

exploit!

[Coyote]

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.

if it were swallows instead...

[mraymer]

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?

I can imagine...

[LordK3nn3th]

...a DDoS attack over this looking like a scence out of Hitchcock's The Birds...

pong

[Peridriga]

pong **** CARRIER LOST

wow.... That phrase has a great deal more irony now.

Next up: pigeon network h4xx0rz

[thirty2bit]

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.

P....., not Pigeons have the bandwidth!

[karlandtanya]

Penises have higher bandwidth than cable modems. [The following found, of course, on the Internet.]

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 .005 tb/s. Cable modems generally transmit somewhere around 1/5000th of that .

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.

RFC 2549 security update

[Doc Ruby]

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.

[E] Pythonesque

[Gorimek]

There has to be a good swallow joke to be made from it too. If you know what I mean.