Sluggish Data Transport

A little while back, I mentioned RFC 1149 – a paper describing a standard for the transmission of data using avian carriers – otherwise known as pigeons.

 

Now, researchers in Israel have built upon this important work by describing an experiment in which a Giant African Snail, acting as a data transfer agent, exceeded all known “lastmile” communications technologies in terms of bit-per-second performance, adding to the many paradoxes of broadband communications.

 

They discuss "the unique motivational and guidance systems necessary to facilitate snail-based data transport, and observe with satisfaction that in a society that worships the fittest, fastest, and furtherest, the meek and the slow can sometimes outperform all known competitors, giving rise to the new and exciting field of sluggish data networks".

 

Their work appears in a paper published in that august journal, the Annals of Improbable Research, July-August 2005