RFC 3514 – The Security Flag in the IPv4 Header,[34]Informational.
Proposal for the 'evil bit', as an option in the IPv4 packet header. Later, this became a synonym for all attempts to seek simple technical solutions for difficult human social problems which require the willing participation of malicious actors.
RFC 4041 – Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts,[36]Informational.
RFC 4042 – UTF-9 and UTF-18 Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode,[37]Informational.
Notable for containing PDP-10 assembly language code nearly 22 years after the manufacturer ceased production of the PDP-10, and for being technically possible as opposed to many of these other proposals.
An April 1st RFC was not published this year, but an announcement on the IETF list about the appointment of the Sesame Street character Bert as member of the IAB appears to have been the April Fools' Day 2006 stunt.
2007
RFC 4824 – The Transmission of IP Datagrams over the Semaphore Flag Signaling System (SFSS),[39]Informational.
RFC 6593 – Service Undiscovery Using Hide-and-Go-Seek for the Domain Pseudonym System (DPS),[49]Informational.
2013
RFC 6919 – Further Key Words for Use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels,[50]Experimental.
Enhances the ability of the RFC's author to also convey intention and purpose in a more informal way, with (in)directive key words, like: "MUST (BUT WE KNOW YOU WON'T)" (when you know beforehand you will be ignored, but to come out morally superior anyway) and "REALLY SHOULD NOT" (when it is to be expected that 'boys will be boys').
RFC 6921 – Design Considerations for Faster-Than-Light (FTL) Communication,[51]Informational.
When it becomes possible to send packets over the Internet faster than light, they may be received before they are sent (due to time reversal), which will have major impact on many protocols in use today. With sufficient speed (and corresponding negative time shift), a complete communication may have taken place before it even has started. The RFC reviews the design principles of those protocols, to prevent future breakdown of communication. Most likely, we should have started upgrading them yesterday.
Further information on what in this case would be called 'Backward Error Correction': Forward Error Correction
RFC 7169 – The NSA (No Secrecy Afforded) Certificate Extension,[53]Informational.
Although generally unwanted, private key counterparts of X509digital certificates may have been or have been shared with a third party, for lawful interception or other reasons. Users may now be notified of this fact with a new certificate extension, specifying the boolean value ext-KeyUsage. When 'true', the private key has been shared; when 'false', the signer abstains from commenting on whether or not sharing has taken place.
2015
RFC 7511 – Scenic Routing for IPv6,[54]Experimental.
Green IT has become increasingly important. In a win-win proposition, for packets and the environment alike, this RFC defines a way to allow packets to be routed through the air, to get as much sunlight and fresh air possible. Sending packets over Wi-Fi or by pidgeons will help them escape their torturous routine of assembly and disassembly, and being shot through dark fibers and copper cables all the time.
In an approach similar to the now deprecated ICMPSource Quench, it reuses that packet's 'Type' field (4) to tell the sender (really more explicitly than ECN) to shut up. The user responsible for the traffic MUST be made aware of the contents of an RECN message by means of text-to-speech, or pop-ups if the audio channel is muted.
RFC 8135 – Complex Addressing in IPv6,[57]Experimental.
Takes a rather mathematical approach to use the 128-bit IPv6 address space in other ways than the traditional one, to ultimately arrive at Complex Addresses. You may use the imaginary part of a complex address (with polar coordinates as the real part) to reach Santa Claus, for example. It also proposes to use Flying Addresses for end hosts using IP over avian carriers.
RFC 8136 – Additional Transition Functionality for IPv6,[58]Informational.
As the Internet Architecture Board intends to relax requirements for compatibility with IPv4 for new or extended protocols, this RFC helps the adoption of IPv6 by setting the evil bit for all IPv4 packets to 1, making sure that dual stack hosts will favor IPv6, as will the Happy Eyeballs algorithm. To maintain functional equivalence between IPv4 and IPv6, the 'security flag' of RFC3514 should be included in the IPv6 header. Advanced security options may be specified in a new hop-by-hop option header.
RFC 8140 – The Arte of ASCII: Or, An True and Accurate Representation of an Menagerie of Thynges Fabulous and Wonderful in Ye Forme of Character,[59]Informational.
RFC 8367 – Wrongful Termination of Internet Protocol (IP) Packets,[60]Informational.
A heartfelt cry to end packet discrimination at the IP level, where they frequently (even in this day and age) are terminated prematurely, based on color,[61]length, age, etcetera, or even by IP version!
RFC 8369 – Internationalizing IPv6 Using 128-Bit Unicode,[62]Informational.
Proposes to use 128-bit Unicode to facilitate internationalization of IPv6, since the 1.114.112 code points of the current implementation of Unicode is deemed insufficient for the future. IPv6 addresses may be represented by a single U+128 glyph, to reduce stress on the eyes of network administrators.
If implemented, it would obsolete RFC8135, because "[i]t was found to be too complex to implement anyway".
A 'response/request' protocol similar to HTTP/1.1 but where clients send a response to the server (e.g. "Hello World. My payload includes a trailing CRLF.") to which the server answers with a request (e.g. GET /hello.txt), like in the Jeopardy! game. The Hypertext Double Jeopardy Protocol (HTJ2P) (described in Appendix A) inverses the semantics of HTJP again.
RFC 8567 – Customer Management DNS Resource Records,[64]Informational.
RFC 8771 – The Internationalized Deliberately Unreadable Network NOtation (I-DUNNO),[65]Experimental.
A proposal to use UTF-8 to obfuscate (and help replace) textual IP addresses, to coerce a small minority of people to use the DNS instead of sticking to (and mixing up) plain IP addresses.
Dismisses RFC6921 with the notion that considering time travel for faster-than-light packet delivery is "amusing" but impossible as a concept. Instead, it focuses on real life quantum entanglement in relation to packetround trip times, which (depending on the observer) could reach zero. This may cause havoc among several protocols, which should be fixed "in time" before things break.
2021
RFC 8962 – Establishing the Protocol Police,[67]Informational.
Since the Internet Engineering Task Force claims it "is not the Protocol Police", it is formally established here. It polices various aspects of protocol definitions laid out by the RFC series, and enforces adherence to them. They are sanctioned to access walled gardens and may even resort to traffic imprisonment. By the way: if you are interested in joining the Protocol Police, contact your localhost.
2022
RFC 9225 – Software Defects Considered Harmful,[68]Informational.
Discourages the practice of introducing software defects, to reduce costs and lessen security impacts. By introducing some best current practices the authors hope to get rid of them: "Authors MUST NOT implement bugs. If bugs are introduced in code, they MUST be clearly documented."
Known problems with hexadecimal representation of numbers can be avoided by replacing its alphabet of 0-9 and A-F with two octal ranges: 0-7 and the letters 'cjzwfsbv' (to represent values 8-15 in a bitwise elegant way).
2023
RFC 9401 – The Addition of the Death (DTH) Flag to TCP,[70]Informational.
As is customary in light novels, a 'death flag' indicates the increased likelihood of a swift demise of the character. Transferred to TCP, the DTH flag in the packet header could lead to smoother and more attractive session narratives.
Finally, a formalized way (with a ABNFgrammar description) to properly describe the interaction between cats and containers, including the occasional ball of yarn.
RFC 9405 – AI Sarcasm Detection: Insult Your AI without Offending It,[72]Informational.
The AI Sarcasm Detection Protocol (ASDP) is a framework for detecting sarcasm in AI systems (written with the help of ChatGPT). Detecting sarcasm may help improve AI - human intercommunication.
2024
RFC 9564 – Faster Than Light Speed Protocol (FLIP),[73]Informational.
The recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) such as large language models enable the design of the Faster than Light speed Protocol (FLIP) for Internet. FLIP provides a way to avoid congestion, enhance security, and deliver faster packets on the Internet by using AI to predict future packets at the receiving peer before they arrive. This document describes the protocol, its various encapsulations, and some operational considerations.
Other humorous RFCs
RFC 439 – PARRY Encounters the DOCTOR,[74]Status Unknown.
RFC 968 – 'Twas the Night Before Start-up',[76]Status Unknown.
A poem that discusses problems that arise, and debugging techniques used, in bringing a new network into operation. It shows that array indexing is problematic since the olden days.
RFC 1882 – The 12-Days of Technology Before Christmas,[77]Informational.
The RFC Editor accepts submission of properly formatted April Fools' Day RFCs from the general public, and considers them for publication in the same year if received at least two weeks prior to April 1st.[79][80] This practice of publishing April Fool's Day RFCs is specifically acknowledged in the instructions memo for RFC authors, with a tongue-in-cheek note saying: "Note that in past years the RFC Editor has sometimes published serious documents with April 1 dates. Readers who cannot distinguish satire by reading the text may have a future in marketing."[79]
