> From: Elwyn Davies [elwynd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] > > On 02/04/12 18:53, Scott Brim wrote: > > On 04/02/12 03:12, Riccardo Bernardini allegedly wrote: > >> In the Introduction I read > >> > >> "Mind you, the Null Packet is not created by compressing a packet until it > >> disappears into nothingness." > >> > >> That is nice, since I believe that doing so would create a "black hole > >> packet" that would attract and collapse the whole Internet. On the > >> plus side, we would not need to worry anymore about IPv6... > > There's your RFC for next April. > > Of course some theorists believe that all communication links carry a > continual traffic of Null Packets resulting from the scalar TOS Field > that pervades the Internet and occasionally quantum fluctuations result > in pairs of virtual packets (such as ICMP Echo and Echo Responses) being > created and traveling off in opposite directions. Normally most of > these virtual packets recombine without being observed, but occasionally > they result in unexpected congestion when an encounter with a router > collapses the superposition of protocol states in which these virtual > packets normally exist. And by Hawking's Theorem, due to quantum fluctuations each black hole packet will emit a radiation of packets (with a black-body spectrum!), whose intensity will be *inversely proportional* to the length of the black hole packet. A black hole packet of any significant length won't substantially affect a network because its radiation will be very sparse, but as the packet shrinks to zero length, it will end its life with a burst of intense packet radiation, causing network congestion and, possibly, collapse, unless the router buffers are large enough to store the burst. I foresee the need of a large government grant to research this problem. (See RFC 439 for another vital, government-supported research project.) Dale