Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pingfs – a filesystem where the data is stored only ICMP Echo packets

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 42 posts

Re: Pingfs – a filesystem where the data is stored only ICMP Echo packets

#31

Post by digi_owl »

jbert wrote: post #9

In the pre-smtp days, email links were over UUCP, which was often relayed via dial up lines which connected intermittently, on a schedule (e.g. every hour). You also specified not just the destination, but also the route for the email to take, via a 'bang path': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#Bang_path Add in the situation of disk quotas for university students, but not email quotas, and you get the means, motive…

I seem to recall people creating programs that would use gmail for data storage.

Also, UUCP sounds similar to Fidonet.

Re: Pingfs – a filesystem where the data is stored only ICMP Echo packets

#32

Post by joeyo »

teddyh wrote: post #28

Technically, the data is not stored in the network, but in the buffer memory of the routers (and switches) in the path of the packets. So what this is really doing is externalizing the cost of storage to the network providers. There is a problem called “ Buffer bloat ”¹ which is that many manufacturers of networking equipment provide too much buffer memory, which leads to TCP latency and timeouts, since TCP was not d…

I dunno, this is actually very reminiscent to me of how neurons (putatively) store information in their firing rates--at least in the short-term--before consolidating state into their synaptic weights.

Re: Pingfs – a filesystem where the data is stored only ICMP Echo packets

#33

Post by heywire »

evgen wrote: post #26
jbert wrote: post #9

In the pre-smtp days, email links were over UUCP, which was often relayed via dial up lines which connected intermittently, on a schedule (e.g. every hour). You also specified not just the destination, but also the route for the email to take, via a 'bang path': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#Bang_path Add in the situation of disk quotas for university students, but not email quotas, and you get the means, motive…

Since the statute of limitations has expired I will admit to creating data archival systems using uucp as well as smtp. Back in the 80s before the morris worm and spam, when the internet was just for us geeks, you could usually connect to anyone's mail server on port 25 and hand it mail to be delivered just about anywhere. Sendmail was more concerned with connecting up all of the various networks than it was about au…

Similarly, in the early AOL days, there were several "warez" distribution lists going around which had the pirated software directly attached to the emails (not links to external websites). As long as the emails stayed in AOL, you could forward them instantly (there must have been some deduplication on the back end making the attachments basically a link to the same files).

Re: Pingfs – a filesystem where the data is stored only ICMP Echo packets

#34

Post by jameshart »

kej wrote: post #17
jf wrote: post #6

If we had space probes with ICMP support, you could use this to store data in the interplanetary æther.

You don't need ICMP for that, or even an active space probe. Just encode your data in laser pulses and bounce it off one of the retroreflectors we've put out there. There are at least three on the moon, or the LAGEOS satellites ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAGEOS ) would work.

Hmm - quick research shows that laser communications have been demonstrated at up to around 1Gb/s; given the roundtrip time to a retroreflector on the moon, you could have around a 300MB buffer in flight at a time. Average latency to read or change a particular byte would be about 1.2 seconds, so not ideal for high performance applications. Also, wouldn't work when the moon was below the horizon. Plus installing additional retroreflectors on the moon to increase capacity would be quite expensive.

Re: Pingfs – a filesystem where the data is stored only ICMP Echo packets

#35

Post by ars »

agumonkey wrote: post #29
teddyh wrote: post #28

Technically, the data is not stored in the network, but in the buffer memory of the routers (and switches) in the path of the packets. So what this is really doing is externalizing the cost of storage to the network providers. There is a problem called “ Buffer bloat ”¹ which is that many manufacturers of networking equipment provide too much buffer memory, which leads to TCP latency and timeouts, since TCP was not d…

A teacher told me in the 70s they used satellite communication as memory buffers, sending data over the air with getting it back a bit later as only goal. IIUC, the earliest form of memory device were doing the same using pressure waves in mercury.

It's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory

Re: Pingfs – a filesystem where the data is stored only ICMP Echo packets

#37

Post by iaw »

evgen wrote: post #26
jbert wrote: post #9

In the pre-smtp days, email links were over UUCP, which was often relayed via dial up lines which connected intermittently, on a schedule (e.g. every hour). You also specified not just the destination, but also the route for the email to take, via a 'bang path': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#Bang_path Add in the situation of disk quotas for university students, but not email quotas, and you get the means, motive…

Since the statute of limitations has expired I will admit to creating data archival systems using uucp as well as smtp. Back in the 80s before the morris worm and spam, when the internet was just for us geeks, you could usually connect to anyone's mail server on port 25 and hand it mail to be delivered just about anywhere. Sendmail was more concerned with connecting up all of the various networks than it was about au…

It's funny, you mention the statute of limitations, but wouldn't this act predate any laws that exist now to prevent it?

Re: Pingfs – a filesystem where the data is stored only ICMP Echo packets

#38

Post by agumonkey »

ars wrote: post #35
agumonkey wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A teacher told me in the 70s they used satellite communication as memory buffers, sending data over the air with getting it back a bit later as only goal. IIUC, the earliest form of memory device were doing the same using pressure waves in mercury.

It's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory

Yes, for the mercury ones, but it doesn't mention satellite air gap, which I find kind of hackish, the goal of the submitted post.

Re: Pingfs – a filesystem where the data is stored only ICMP Echo packets

#39

Post by toast0 »

jameshart wrote: post #34
kej wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need ICMP for that, or even an active space probe. Just encode your data in laser pulses and bounce it off one of the retroreflectors we've put out there. There are at least three on the moon, or the LAGEOS satellites ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAGEOS ) would work.

Hmm - quick research shows that laser communications have been demonstrated at up to around 1Gb/s; given the roundtrip time to a retroreflector on the moon, you could have around a 300MB buffer in flight at a time. Average latency to read or change a particular byte would be about 1.2 seconds, so not ideal for high performance applications. Also, wouldn't work when the moon was below the horizon. Plus installing addi…

You don't need more retroreflectors, just ground lasers far enough apart (and someone with more physics than me to make an argument about the waves not interfering at the reflector)

Re: Pingfs – a filesystem where the data is stored only ICMP Echo packets

#40

Post by planteen »

amelius wrote: post #12

In principle, one could store BxL/v in a cable of length L, where B is the bandwidth and v is the propagation speed of the signal.

Delay filters are built intentionally by RF engineers for pre-distortion and probably other purposes. I think the limit for such simple designs is ~100 ns.
Post reply on HN