Evil bit

Evil bit

The evil bit is a fictional IPv4 packet header field proposed in RFC 3514, a humorous April Fools' Day RFC from 2003 authored by Steve Bellovin. The RFC recommended that the last remaining unused bit in the IPv4 packet header be used to indicate whether a packet had been sent with malicious intent, thus making computer security engineering an easy problem.

Influence

The evil bit has become a synonym for all attempts to seek simple technical solutions for difficult human social problems, in particular efforts to implement Internet censorship using simple technical solutions.

The evil bit also became a noteworthy in-joke in Slashdot. News about the publication of this RFC was posted in Slashdot dozens of times, reworded each time, among other April Fools stories, poking humour at the common criticism of Slashdot often posting duplicate stories.

As a joke, FreeBSD implemented this on the same day but removed the changes on the following day. [ [http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/cvs-all/2003-April/001098.html Implementation] , [http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/cvs-all/2003-April/001295.html removal] ]

This RFC has also been quoted in the otherwise completely serious RFC 3675, ".sex Considered Dangerous", which may have caused the proponents of .xxx to wonder whether the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) was commenting on their application for a top-level domain (TLD) - the document was not related to their application.

ee also

*Technical fix

References


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Evil (disambiguation) — Evil describes willful, immoral acts. It also serves as a blanket term for bad things.Evil may also refer to:In film and television: * Evil (2003 film), a 2003 Swedish film starring Andreas Wilson * Evil (2005 film), a Greek horror film *Evil the …   Wikipedia

  • Evil Dead: The Musical — Livret George Reinblatt Sources les films Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead 2 (1987) et Evil Dead 3 (1992) Lyrics George Reinblatt Christopher Bond Musique Christopher Bond Frank Cipolla Melissa Morris George Reinblatt Rob Daleman Première …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Evil twin (wireless networks) — Evil Twin is a term for a rogue Wi Fi access point that appears to be a legitimate one offered on the premises, but actually has been set up by a hacker to eavesdrop on wireless communications among Internet surfers. [ Strange Wi Fi spots may… …   Wikipedia

  • Bit Managers — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Bit Managers, antiguamente conocida como New Frontier, fue una empresa desarrolladora de videojuegos con sede en Santa Coloma de Gramenet (España). Historia La compañía fue fundada en 1988 con el nombre de New… …   Wikipedia Español

  • Evil Under the Sun (1982 film) — Infobox Film name = Evil Under the Sun caption = Original film poster director = Guy Hamilton producer = John Brabourne Richard B. Goodwin writer = Novel: Agatha Christie Screenplay: Anthony Shaffer Uncredited: Barry Sandler starring = Peter… …   Wikipedia

  • List of 8-Bit Theater characters — The events in the webcomic 8 Bit Theater center around four major characters the Light Warriors and a number of minor ones. Many of the characters are based on characters from the original Final Fantasy, but are highly satirized and parodied,… …   Wikipedia

  • Light Warriors (8-Bit Theater) — Collectively known as the Warriors of Light (or simply the Light Warriors ), Black Mage, Fighter, Thief and Red Mage are the main characters of 8 Bit Theater. Their names and appearances are based on four classes from the first Final Fantasy game …   Wikipedia

  • Characters of 8-Bit Theater — The events in the webcomic 8 Bit Theater center around four major characters the Light Warriors and a number of minor ones.The Light WarriorsBlack Mage, Fighter, Thief and Red Mage are the protagonists of the story, a dysfunctional group of… …   Wikipedia

  • 8-Bit Theater — Sample panels from January 20, 2004 Author(s) Brian Clevinger …   Wikipedia

  • List of characters and locations in the Evil Dead series — This is a list of characters and locations in the Evil Dead series created by director Sam Raimi.CharactersMain charactersAsh WilliamsAsh s sister and the odd woman out in the group. She is the first to sense the danger surrounding the cabin and… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”