Pigeon-powered internet packet goes under the hammer at Christie's

A piece of internet history that once traveled strapped to a pigeon's leg is up for auction at Christie's, where someone has already bid $4,000 for what might be the world's most expensive ping. The unusual lot is a surviving IP packet from a 2001 experiment in which Norwegian Linux enthusiasts decided to find out whether the internet could, in fact, run on birds. The idea dates back to April 1, 1990, when American network engineer David Waitzman published RFC 1149, titled A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers. Written in the wonderfully dry language of an official internet standards document, the April Fools' proposal outlined how carrier pigeons could transport IP datagrams between locations. It noted that avian carriers could provide high bandwidth, although latency would be another matter entirely. Most people appreciated the joke and moved on. The Bergen Linux User Group (BLUG), however, decided to actually build the thing. …