So I don't blame anyone for taking this seriously (it took me 5 minutes of reading their blog before I finally convinced myself it was a joke), but this is definitely a parody. I mean, just look at this from their YC application:
> Our initial market research suggests Pigeon can become a major player in the pigeon-as-a-service (PaaS) space.
> It's difficult to explain to non-pigeon users (NPUs), but the excitement is real...
EDIT: When I posted this most of the comments in this thread seemed to take the company at face value. The multiple references to RFC 1149 and the "fleet" page since then have rather changed the tone. :)
This is all in good fun, but let's also recognize that there is serious utility for this form of communication - especially in complex electromagnetic environments like wartime.
To that end, as recently as 2011 Chinese PLA have 10s of thousands of trained carrier pigeons for secure message transport.[1]
Unfortunately, that position is already occoopied. However, you can check out our careers page to learn more about the available positions: https://flypigeon.co/careers
I live in City A and want to send messages to my friend in City B. We both have a coop of carrier pigeons on our respective roofs. We meet up one day, and swap a number of pigeons. Now, if I want to talk to my friend, I just go up to my pigeon coop, select one of his pigeons, attach my message, and let the bird fly home.
It's like swapping private keys, except it can only happen in person.
When you exchange the number of pigeons, do they need to observe the travel back to City A to set directional bearings, or do you need to keep them in darkness so they will return to City B out of pure instinct?
Apologies for my ignorance, asking for myself and a friend....
According to this [1] nature article, homing pigeons have an innate sense of where 'home' is and can use the Earth's magnetic field to point themselves in the right direction, thanks to iron in their beaks. They don't need to 'learn' the path, like some migratory birds - they have a built in GPS. Which is kind of neat, when you think about it.
Exactly, and most of them are out of a job right now. Employment opportunities as Pigeon-Of-Piece have gone down drastically over the past couple of years. The Pigeon-as-a-Service industry has an opportunity here to step up in the name of social responsibility and do its share to increase and distribute wealth in one of the most ignored sectors of the populace.
I would pay money for such a delivery system, but it would only work with pidgeon hotels/stations in each city and the more specific local distribution by for example volunteer or paid cyclists who know where to go. It would be valuable carbonfree messaging supporting the local economies (and health of pidgeons)! You could also do solar powered fidonet-like raspberry pi asynchronous national network and print-outs (or handwriting) for last mile delivery but that would perhaps be more difficult and expensive to setup. Not sure if either would be a viable business plan.
Indeed, if we also cut out the browser and the cloud, then NSA and colleagues will just have to train their own under-cover stool pigeons. This should be fun to watch.
The problem with using pigeons for transferring private data is the automatic route tracing (as described in RFC1149). Any person will notice any pigeon routing that is being performed and this may provide enough information for future packets to be captured in transit. However carefully designed dietary controls can reduce the risk, for example, by limiting fiber intake.
Yes. https://flypigeon.co/fleet -- The service only operates in Florida (USA) so far, but they bring an actual bird to the door when delivering the message.
Their startup is actually upstair in my building since a couple months. I'll go talk to them to figure out what's going on.
I guess it's a way to get attention and that they will provide some sort of secure messaging system.
No other messaging than this exists. We've been waiting for a couple weeks, squirt. Come up here, and I'd be happy to show you the press kit and everything else. Taco Tuesday's tomorrow! God bless.
As I understand carrier pigeons, is that they don't know where to go, only how to get home so usually, you'll give them a letter and they take it home, where the person then can collect the letter. But this seems different.
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149