[HN Gopher] IP over Avian Carriers RFC 1149 event (2001)
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       IP over Avian Carriers RFC 1149 event (2001)
        
       Author : tyropita
       Score  : 71 points
       Date   : 2022-03-29 14:13 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.blug.linux.no)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.blug.linux.no)
        
       | divbzero wrote:
       | RFC 1149 was updated in RFC 6214 [1] to support IPv6 but adoption
       | has been painstakingly slow among avian ISPs.
       | 
       | [1]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6214
        
         | einpoklum wrote:
         | Hey! We'll have none of that anti-pigeon bigotry here :-P
         | ---             \                  /   @ )               \
         | _/_   |~ \)                 \     ( ( (     \ \
         | ( ( ( ( (       | \         _ _=(_(_(_(_(_(_(_  _ _ /  )
         | -  _ _ _  /                               _\___
         | `    "'
        
         | charcircuit wrote:
         | Do you have a source for this? I would imagine all of them
         | would already support it if they are in to supporting a niche
         | such as avian messaging.
        
       | iamtheworstdev wrote:
       | related:
       | http://linux.omnipotent.net/article.php?article_id=12239.
        
       | ineedasername wrote:
       | The vast majority of "packets dropped" were completely unrelated
       | to IP traffic.
        
       | throw0101a wrote:
       | Not so funny at times: an article from 2009, "In Africa, A Pigeon
       | Transfers Data Faster Than The Internet":
       | 
       | * https://www.wired.com/2009/09/in-africa-a-pigeon-transfers-d...
       | 
       | * https://spectrum.ieee.org/carrier-pigeon-beats-internet-
        
         | mattalex wrote:
         | As long as your name isn't google, transfer by pigeon will
         | always be faster (regardless of africa, silicon valley or
         | downtown New York). The reason people use the internet for data
         | transfer has little to do with transfer speed and everything to
         | do with latency.
        
         | divbzero wrote:
         | Strap the pigeon with 100 1TB microSD cards (~250 mg per card)
         | and the bandwidth will approach the transfer speed of the
         | microSD card itself -- nearly gigabit speed for UHS-III cards.
        
         | 29athrowaway wrote:
         | A truck full of storage volumes can have a higher bandwidth
         | than fiber. Just really bad latency.
        
           | deepspace wrote:
           | Interesting how the analogy progressed over the years from "a
           | station wagon filled with tapes" to "a truck full of storage
           | volumes".
           | 
           | An A380 filled with micro SD cards would likely beat any
           | conceivable fiber network in bandwidth, if not latency.
        
             | czinck wrote:
             | XKCD What If kinda answered your question, although it's
             | for the real fleets and not a specific plane, https://what-
             | if.xkcd.com/31/. From February 2013 though, so out-of-date
             | even if you ignore how covid has messed with shipping.
        
             | 29athrowaway wrote:
             | A hyperloop full of DNA-based storage has more bandwidth
             | than STM-1024 but less latency.
        
           | readams wrote:
           | This is roughly the idea behind Amazon snowball and similar
           | products.
        
       | tmysl wrote:
       | r/BirdsArentReal will definitely get a kick out of this
        
         | ineedasername wrote:
         | Sure, it's all fun & games when everyone is in on the joke.
         | Just like the flat earthers, up until some musician gets into a
         | twitter spat with Neil Degrasse Tyson over the flatness (or
         | lack thereof) of the Earth.
         | 
         | Only with birds, we'll have non-ironic activists burning down
         | chicken coops and claiming the so-called "meat" we buy in
         | supermarkets is some kind of mind control or Soylent Green, and
         | all evidence that it started as a joke will be taken as
         | evidence of a coverup.
        
           | markstos wrote:
           | Where the claims that meat is mind control or Soylent Green?
        
             | ineedasername wrote:
             | That was speculation of where the fledgling #BirdsArentReal
             | movement could end up, but I'm really not serious about my
             | criticism of the meme.
             | 
             | As a sibling comment to yours pointed out, true believers
             | of things like a flat earth are an extreme minority and I'm
             | not particularly concerned that a parody conspiracy theory
             | will cause much harm. I doubt the few true believers will
             | be burning chicken coops any more than flat earthers are
             | blowing up globes. (I really hope I'm not wrong about that,
             | I do like chicken quite a bit).
             | 
             | And we, as a society & individuals, can't and shouldn't be
             | 100% serious about everything 100% of the time. We should
             | be able to laugh at things, even very serious things. For
             | example I find it pretty funny that some Russian tanks are
             | being abducted by Ukrainian farmers w/ tractors. I can also
             | see how deadly serious it is: It's not like they're just a
             | few viral videos made by influencers, it's everyday people
             | like farmers trying to take deadly resources out of the
             | hands of an invading army.
        
               | quinnjh wrote:
               | The united states consumer protection twitter has been
               | championing humor in this area https://mobile.twitter.com
               | /USCPSC/status/1478844214574305282?
               | 
               | I like your points about the necessity of humor and i
               | think its the only way to the future for us without mass
               | psychosis and cultural schizming. When biomorphic-
               | engineered bird-drones can fly autonomously, and pigeons
               | have been carrying IP for the ruling class for thousands
               | of years, we are going to need some comedy to settle the
               | #birdsarereal issue
        
           | mardifoufs wrote:
           | True, unironic Flat earthers are still an extreme fringe of
           | mostly mentally ill people. If anything, the most common
           | conspiracy theory about flat earth is that it's a psyop to
           | discredit...other conspiracy theories lol. You'd be
           | considered as a complete weirdo for believing in flat earth
           | even amongst qanon types.
           | 
           | It's funny though since the "5g tower burning, covid denying
           | flat earther" caricature has become so overused that some
           | believe that it's actually a real thing. But in reality it's
           | so incredibly uncommon
        
       | tag2103 wrote:
       | What a kinder and gentler internet we missed. I for one would
       | support the "pigeoneer" position for my own small tech firm.
        
       | mothsonasloth wrote:
       | There is Avian and Sneakernet, any other esoteric RFCs?
       | 
       | I've always wondered if you could send data on migrating shoals
       | of fish like Salmon?
        
         | ineedasername wrote:
         | Here's a list of them:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day_Request_for...
        
           | can16358p wrote:
           | Let's see what's being added there in two days...
        
         | deathanatos wrote:
         | My favorite is RFC 6919, "Further Key Words for Use in RFCs to
         | Indicate Requirement Levels"[1], which adds more keywords in
         | the same spirit as MUST and SHOULD, such as,
         | 
         | > _The phrase "OUGHT TO" conveys an optimistic assertion of an
         | implementation behavior that is clearly morally right, and thus
         | does not require substantiation._
         | 
         | [1]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6919
        
       | deathanatos wrote:
       | > _with ping times varying from 3211 to 6389 seconds. I guess
       | this is a new record for ping times..._
       | 
       | Hmm, T-mobile's network comes close, but not quite that high, I
       | think. /s
       | 
       | Somewhat more seriously, I have seen ping times approaching
       | 20,000 ms on their network. Given the light-distance to the moon
       | is ~1.3 seconds, this ping clearly went significantly further
       | than the moon's orbit, and back; very clearly some routes need
       | tweaking.
       | 
       | That or one hop involved a somewhat speedier avian.
        
         | thamer wrote:
         | There are some instances of real data taking much more than
         | 6,389 seconds to travel. Voyager 2 was contacted in November
         | 2020[1], being at the time 18.8 billion km away from Earth.
         | Light takes about 62,000 seconds or 17h25m to travel this
         | distance... each way! Almost a 35-hour ping.
         | 
         | Voyager 1 is further away and still sending data, although I
         | don't think that it has received commands for a very long time.
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/11/04/voya...
        
           | ryankrage77 wrote:
           | It recieved commands as recently as December 2017, when the
           | TCM thrusters were activated.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1#Future_of_the_probe
        
         | zamadatix wrote:
         | More likely than moving far or moving slow the ping spent a
         | long time being buffered at a radio lower layer retransmit
         | where, much like Wi-Fi, having an issue sending the packet can
         | result in multiple retries instead of an immediate drop.
        
       | sarchertech wrote:
       | Funny that this would come up. This event was what inspired the
       | last picture in a book I'm working on.
       | 
       | In the same vein, I actually built a device once that allowed you
       | to send http messages via black and white marbles rolling down a
       | tube. It was _very_ slow (and the simplest message required
       | refilling the hopper many times).
       | 
       | I used some drawings of an old gumball machine to design the
       | dispenser, and I used an Arduino with a color sensor and an LED
       | in a 3d printed tunnel to detect the marble color. I had to bury
       | the sensor inside a tunnel with several twists and turns to block
       | out enough ambient light to get a reliable signal.
       | 
       | https://www.networksfromscratch.com/1.html#whats-next
        
       | jkonline wrote:
       | I have proudly used RFC 1149s and 2549 many times over the years,
       | (as straight faced as possible) as learning aids for INFOSEC and
       | Help desk n00bs. Being able to introduce intentionally humorous
       | material (that is documented within a scientific document
       | process) has been a huge help.
        
       | jug wrote:
       | There is clearly an issue with the network protocol if the
       | packets run the risk of starting to socialize with each other!
        
       | Helloyello wrote:
        
       | billpg wrote:
       | When I read that RFC, I imagined that a barcode would be more
       | reliable to read in and process than printing the hex characters.
        
         | jxy wrote:
         | Typical 1D barcode has a size limit, and the RFC is from 1990.
         | Nowadays you could just use a QR code, which would be
         | comfortable enough to have a 1500 MTU in a single QR code. It
         | probably warrants an additional layer so multiple QR codes can
         | be transmitted by a single carrier.
        
           | _Algernon_ wrote:
           | Looked into using paper as an archival for small amounts of
           | data as a long-term backup of very important data, and found
           | this[1], which would allow encoding ~200kB of data per A4
           | page. Should be applicable for avian IP as well.
           | 
           | [1]: https://blog.za3k.com/paper-archival/
        
             | jkonline wrote:
             | Interesting, many thanks. Currently enjoying the fall down
             | the Golay code rabbit hole.
             | 
             | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_Golay_code
        
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       (page generated 2022-03-29 23:01 UTC)