Sep 09
11
South Africans Discover Breakthrough Internet (NBN) Technology (Or Sneaker net with Variations).
The Internet is lauded by many, hated by a few, but without
doubt has changed the lives of everyone connected to it.
It is therefore reasonable that the internet and it’s
underlying technologies occasionally become the target of geek humour.
The internet is abuzz today about the pigeon that could.
South African Internet users throttled by the limited pipe
supplied by SA Monopoly “Telkom SA” decided to look for alternatives in moving
their data around.
So, “The Unlimited”, a South African ISP set-up the “The Great Pidgeon Race
of 2009”.
“The Unlimited faces great challenges in getting data
from its locations across KZN back to its central location for storage. These
are large files, and it was postulated that a pigeon could do this faster than
a normal landline could.
And so @pigeonrace2009
was born.
The Rules of Pigeonrace2009
- No
Cats allowed - The
same amount of data will be sent on the landline and via the pigeon, on a
SD card ( 4 gigabytes) - The
race is from Howick to Hillcrest - The
Pigeon flys from Howick to Gillits, and then will be transported via car
to the finish site ( where the landline data will arrive) - The
day will be announced closer to the time - Birdseed
must not have any performance enhancing seeds within. - Data
is not to be compressed.”
The Pigeon's mission? Carry 4 GB of data between Howick and Hillcrest and get there ahead of the ADSL Data stream.
And here's the obligatory Google Youtube……
The Result? The
Pigeon (Winston) delivered the 4 GB in 2 hours, 6 minutes and 57 seconds.
Telkom SA ? Well (transfer speed wise) they were still going
49 hours later…….
Interestingly, this technology breakthrough was foreseen in
1990 with the introduction of RFC 1149. Which is replicated here for our
readers edification.
RFC1149
- Standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avia
Network Working Group D.
Waitzman
Request for Comments: 1149 BBN STC
1 April 1990
A Standard for
the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers
Status of this Memo
This memo
describes an experimental method for the encapsulation of
IP datagrams in
avian carriers. This specification is
primarily
useful in
Metropolitan Area Networks. This is an
experimental, not
recommended
standard. Distribution of this memo is
unlimited.
Overview and Rational
Avian carriers
can provide high delay, low throughput, and low
altitude
service. The connection topology is
limited to a single
point-to-point
path for each carrier, used with standard carriers,
but many
carriers can be used without significant interference with
each other,
outside of early spring. This is because
of the 3D ether
space available
to the carriers, in contrast to the 1D ether used by
IEEE802.3. The carriers have an intrinsic collision
avoidance
system, which
increases availability. Unlike some
network
technologies,
such as packet radio, communication is not limited to
line-of-sight
distance. Connection oriented service is
available in
some cities,
usually based upon a central hub topology.
Frame Format
The IP datagram
is printed, on a small scroll of paper, in
hexadecimal,
with each octet separated by whitestuff and blackstuff.
The scroll of
paper is wrapped around one leg of the avian carrier.
A band of duct
tape is used to secure the datagram's edges.
The
bandwidth is
limited to the leg length. The MTU is
variable, and
paradoxically,
generally increases with increased carrier age.
A
typical MTU is
256 milligrams. Some datagram padding
may be needed.
Upon receipt,
the duct tape is removed and the paper copy of the
datagram is
optically scanned into a electronically transmittable
form.
Discussion
Multiple types
of service can be provided with a prioritized pecking
order. An additional property is built-in worm
detection and
eradication. Because IP only
guarantees best effort delivery, loss
of a carrier can
be tolerated. With time, the carriers
are self-
regenerating. While broadcasting
is not specified, storms can cause
data loss. There is persistent delivery retry, until the
carrier
drops. Audit trails are automatically generated, and
can often be
found on logs
and cable trays.
Security Considerations
Security is not
generally a problem in normal operation, but special
measures must be
taken (such as data encryption) when avian carriers
are used in a
tactical environment.
Author's Address
David Waitzman
BBN Systems and
Technologies Corporation
Which of course HAD to be tested ……
Real-life implementation
On 28
April 2001 IPoAC was actually implemented by the Bergen
Linux user group. 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
Our Conclusion?
A clever PR stunt showing the inequity of a dominant monopoly controlling information access.
References:
Winston (the pigeon)
Can be contacted on his own Facebook page and
regularly tweets on Twitter,
an appropriate place for him to hang out.
IP over Avian Carriers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers