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IP itself has been implemented over many network technologies, even carrier pigeons. The birds were actually used to demonstrate delivery of ICMP Ping packets, with a 55% packet loss (apparently due to operator error) and latencies ranging from one to two hours. It would be possible to run TCP on top of that, but the connection setup would require a lot of birds....
– RBerteig
Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 1:36
22

About RBerteig's comment; consider a carrier pigeon carrying a mini-SDHC card. There's the difference between latency and throughput. :-)
– user
Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 6:33
17

@MichaelKjörling This would not interoperate with RFC 1149: “The IP datagram is printed, on a small scroll of paper”.
– kmkaplan
Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 9:43
4

@kmkaplan Unless the datagram was printed on the label of the SDHC card. It's like the cliché from several films - "oh, it's actually ON the harddrive!"
– Jon Hanna
Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 11:12
41

Would have to have some seriously large holes in the firewall to allow avian carriers through.
– squillman
Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 15:01

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