[HN Gopher] IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service (1999)
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IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service (1999)
g(old)
Author : mig4ng
Score : 64 points
Date : 2026-01-20 11:06 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.rfc-editor.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.rfc-editor.org)
| mapt wrote:
| Send a raven to Pyongyang.
| mghackerlady wrote:
| or you can just like, email them. Their overseas news agencies
| have email addresses
| noumenon1111 wrote:
| Objective unclear; we sent a writing desk instead thinking,
| surely Poe could still write on this...
| theginger wrote:
| Disappointed there still isn't a protocol for sending messages in
| a bottle.
| tosti wrote:
| There ain't an RFC for morse code, either.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Naturally. That's an ITU-R recommendation[1].
|
| [1] https://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-M.1677-1-200910-I
| noumenon1111 wrote:
| The original IP over avian carriers RFC is literally ideal for
| sending IP packets in a bottle.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > Carriers in the queue too long may leave log entries
|
| > Avian Carriers MAY eat the NATs.
|
| There's always something I've not spotted / forgotten before with
| these
| block_dagger wrote:
| Bird Internet?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Bird Internets aren't real.
| 71bw wrote:
| > One major benefit to using Avian Carriers is that this is the
| only networking technology that earns frequent flyer miles, plus
| the Concorde and First classes of service earn 50% bonus miles
| per packet.
|
| :D
| nurettin wrote:
| Horse heads have also been used historically to send messages of
| a certain nature.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| With guaranteed receipt. Or at least, they cannot be refused.
| breppp wrote:
| Reminds me of that AWS hard drive truck thing where your data is
| sent with quite the latency
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Alas, Snowmobile has been retired:
|
| <https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/17/amazon_snowmobile_del..
| .> (2024).
| esafak wrote:
| Echoing Andrew Tanenbaum's famous quip, _Never underestimate
| the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down
| the highway_.
| Sharlin wrote:
| It's a great way to demonstrate the difference between
| bandwidth and latency.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Back in the late 90s I delivered a couple of LTO drives and a
| bunch of tapes to a Customer in my car (not a station wagon,
| sadly). As I drove I thought "drive faster to decrease the
| latency!"
|
| (The car was a Geo Metro and my co-workers described it as
| not much bigger than one of the backup tapes-- one of them
| likening it to some kind of interchangeable backup module
| itself.)
| ale42 wrote:
| See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| In 2009 when South African IT communication was essentially only
| permitted through a single entity, as a publicity stunt a small
| ISP did an implementation of this:
|
| https://pigeonrace2009.co.za/
|
| As I recall at the time, the best consumer speeds available were
| 512kbps with a 3GB per month cap at today's cost of about 45USD.
|
| The worst part (especially as a WoW player) is that QoS was
| applied giving priority to ports 80, 443, 110 and 25. This
| resulted in all other ports having terrible latency, probably
| added 150ms on top of the unavoidable (due to speed of light)
| 190ms to get to European servers.
|
| Fortunately today the situation is much better, there are
| numerous FNO companies and even more numerous ISPs for each.
|
| I pay about 45 USD for an uncapped 100Mbps connection.
| Doohickey-d wrote:
| It's an interesting form of spam how theres a link for an
| online gambling site just inline in the text.
| aleken wrote:
| Bergen Linux User Group doing it:
| https://blug.linux.no/project/rfc1149/
| tmountain wrote:
| Fun read from simpler times.
| SilentM68 wrote:
| That's funny, but let's make it more plausible and less-sci-fish-
| ly satirical :)
|
| Proposal: Using Trained Carrier Pigeons as Emergency Data Relays
|
| Objective Create a simple, low-tech way to move digital messages
| across a large area when internet, radio, and phone networks are
| completely blocked.
|
| Core Idea Pigeons carry small memory cards with the messages from
| one station to the next, like a chain of human couriers but using
| birds.
|
| Steps to Set Up
|
| 1. Build small pigeon lofts (homes) at key locations across the
| area (e.g., every 50-100 km). 2. Train homing pigeons to fly
| reliably between each pair of nearby lofts (standard pigeon
| training methods). 3. At each loft, install a simple automatic
| device that: - Reads data from a memory card the arriving pigeon
| carries - Copies the data to a new memory card - Attaches the new
| card to an outgoing pigeon 4. Attach a tiny, lightweight memory
| card (e.g., microSD in a small protective tube) to each pigeon's
| leg. 5. People at the starting point load their digital messages
| (text, small files) onto the card and send the pigeon. 6. Pigeons
| fly to the next loft - data is copied - next pigeon flies onward
| - repeat until the final destination.
|
| Basic Protocol Rules - Each message gets a clear label (e.g.,
| "To: City B, From: City A, Priority: High"). - Stations check
| cards daily and send pigeons in both directions when possible. -
| Use only trained, healthy pigeons; rest them between flights. -
| Protect cards from water and impact with a small, sealed case.
|
| Realistic Performance - Speed: Hours to several days per hop,
| depending on distance and weather. - Capacity: One 256 GB card
| can carry thousands of text messages or a few large files. -
| Reliability: Works in no-power situations; depends on pigeon
| health and weather.
|
| Damage Control -Add cyanide to the chip in case the pigeon gets
| captured.
|
| This is a proven concept (used in wars before radio) updated with
| modern tiny storage.
|
| AI Agents can be fun, at times :)
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