IP over Avian Carriers

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A homing pigeon can carry Internet Protocol traffic.

In computer networking, IP over Avian Carriers (IPoAC) is a humorously-intended proposal to carry Internet Protocol (IP) traffic by birds such as homing pigeons. IP over Avian Carriers was initially described in RFC 1149, an April 1 RFC issued by the Internet Engineering Task Force written by D. Waitzman and released on April Fool's Day 1990. It is one of several April 1 RFCs.

Waitzman described an improvement of his protocol in RFC 2549, IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service (1 April 1999).

IPoAC has been successfully implemented, but for only nine packets of data, with a packet loss ratio of 55%, and a response time ranging from 3000 seconds to over 6000 seconds.

Contents

[edit] Real-life implementation

On 28 April 2001, IPoAC was actually implemented by the Bergen Linux user group.[1] They sent nine packets over a distance of approximately five kilometers (three miles), each carried by an individual pigeon and containing one ping (ICMP Echo Request), and received four responses.

Script started on Sat Apr 28 11:24:09 2001
vegard@gyversalen:~$ /sbin/ifconfig tun0
tun0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol  
          inet addr:10.0.3.2  P-t-P:10.0.3.1  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:150  Metric:1
          RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 
          RX bytes:88 (88.0 b)  TX bytes:168 (168.0 b)

vegard@gyversalen:~$ ping -i 900 10.0.3.1
PING 10.0.3.1 (10.0.3.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=6165731.1 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=3211900.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=5124922.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=6388671.9 ms

--- 10.0.3.1 ping statistics ---
9 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 55% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 3211900.8/5222806.6/6388671.9 ms
vegard@gyversalen:~$ exit

Script done on Sat Apr 28 14:14:28 2001

[edit] Other avian data transfer methods

Rafting photographers already use pigeons as a sneakernet to transport digital photos on flash media from the camera to the tour operator.[2] Over a 30 mile distance a single pigeon may be able to carry tens of gigabytes of data in around an hour, which on a purely bandwidth basis compares very favorably to current ADSL standards, even when accounting for lost drives.[3]

These kinds of simple bulk transport do not actually use the Internet Protocol.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bergen Linux User Group's CPIP Implementation
  2. ^ Birds in the picture - The Denver Post
  3. ^ "Israeli pigeons faster than ADSL"

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers"
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