Pigeon-powered internet packet goes under the hammer at Christie's

A piece of internet history that once traveled strapped to a pigeon's leg is up for auction at Christie's, where someone has already bid $4,000 for what might be the world's most expensive ping. The unusual lot is a surviving IP packet from a 2001 experiment in which Norwegian Linux enthusiasts decided to find out whether the internet could, in fact, run on birds. The idea dates back to April 1, 1990, when American network engineer David Waitzman published RFC 1149, titled A Standard for the Tra