Postal pigeons: still faster than ADSL
The news that everyone sent me on Thursday (thanks to everyone) is that the South African company The Unlimited did manage to send data using mail pigeons faster than using the Telkom ADSL channel (the largest Internet provider in South Africa).
Although it is interesting, it is far from the first attempt to send digital data with pigeons; in fact, this type of data transfer was even defined (not without humor) in IP over Avian Carriers (IPoAC). Here are some details about this.
IPoAC was described in RFC 1149 (RFC, or Request for Comments, is a document that describes some part of the internal mechanisms of the Internet. In short, this is a very technical FAQ for the entire Internet) by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF); this RFC was written by D. Waitzman and published on April 1, 1990. The main idea of ​​this “protocol” is to tie some data carrier (such as a memory card) to the pigeon's leg and send it to its destination.
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IPoAC was first “implemented” (I want to say, they actually did it) by the Bergen Linux Users Group (Norway); they sent 9 pigeons, each carrying 1 ping, to a destination that was about 5 km away, but they received only 4 replies; pretty bad result.
Then, in 2004, a group of Israeli enthusiasts sent 3 carrier pigeons, capable of finding a way home from long distances, to a destination about 100 km from the start. Each dove carried 20-22 tiny memory cards. The total amount of data was 4 GB, and the pigeons coped with it in less than 4 hours.
Finally, on Wednesday, September 9, the guys from The Unlimited sent one 11-month-old dove named Winston with a memory card tied to their leg from their office near Pietermaritzburg to the city of Durban on the coast. Result? 2 hours 6 minutes 57 seconds; By this time, only 4% of the same 4 GB was transferred through the Telkom channel.
What is the moral? Internet channels may be getting faster, but memory card sizes are growing even faster. If you need to transfer data quickly, use the pigeons.
Photo courtesy of iStockphoto , sykono
Although it is interesting, it is far from the first attempt to send digital data with pigeons; in fact, this type of data transfer was even defined (not without humor) in IP over Avian Carriers (IPoAC). Here are some details about this.
IPoAC was described in RFC 1149 (RFC, or Request for Comments, is a document that describes some part of the internal mechanisms of the Internet. In short, this is a very technical FAQ for the entire Internet) by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF); this RFC was written by D. Waitzman and published on April 1, 1990. The main idea of ​​this “protocol” is to tie some data carrier (such as a memory card) to the pigeon's leg and send it to its destination.
')
IPoAC was first “implemented” (I want to say, they actually did it) by the Bergen Linux Users Group (Norway); they sent 9 pigeons, each carrying 1 ping, to a destination that was about 5 km away, but they received only 4 replies; pretty bad result.
Then, in 2004, a group of Israeli enthusiasts sent 3 carrier pigeons, capable of finding a way home from long distances, to a destination about 100 km from the start. Each dove carried 20-22 tiny memory cards. The total amount of data was 4 GB, and the pigeons coped with it in less than 4 hours.
Finally, on Wednesday, September 9, the guys from The Unlimited sent one 11-month-old dove named Winston with a memory card tied to their leg from their office near Pietermaritzburg to the city of Durban on the coast. Result? 2 hours 6 minutes 57 seconds; By this time, only 4% of the same 4 GB was transferred through the Telkom channel.
What is the moral? Internet channels may be getting faster, but memory card sizes are growing even faster. If you need to transfer data quickly, use the pigeons.
Photo courtesy of iStockphoto , sykono
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/69531/
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