{
  "id": 14806966,
  "title": "A piece of the world's oddest network deployment has gone up for auction — if you fancy owning a piece of pigeon-powered internet, it can be yours for just $4,000",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/15/a-piece-of-the-worlds-oddest-network-deployment-has-gone-up-for",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-15T22:15:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "TechRadar",
    "slug": "techradar",
    "url": "https://www.techradar.com/pro/a-piece-of-the-worlds-oddest-network-deployment-has-gone-up-for-auction-if-you-fancy-owning-a-piece-of-pigeon-powered-internet-it-can-be-yours-for-just-usd4-000"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A rare piece of pigeon-powered internet history has been up for auction, with a printed data packet sold at Christie's for $24,600. The packet was originally conceived as an April Fool's joke in 2001 by American network engineer David Waitzman, who later framed and presented it to a fellow network engineer in 2002. The packet, measuring a mere 41mm by 210mm, was part of a proof of concept experiment conducted by the Bergen Linux User Group in Norway. The 2001 experiment used nine racing pigeons to transmit IP packets over a 3-mile distance, employing a single point-to-point path for each carrier. Described as an \"artful hack,\" the RFC 1149 implementation remains a testament to the early internet community's playful spirit and technical ingenuity.",
  "summary": "A piece of oddball internet history has been sold at auction at Christie’s, with over $20,000 bid on a relic of an incredible experiment to send internet packets by pigeon",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}