April Fools' Day Request for Comments

A Request for Comments (RFC), in the context of Internet governance, is a type of publication from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Society (ISOC), usually describing methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems.

Almost every April Fools' Day (1 April) since 1989, the Internet RFC Editor has published one or more humorous Request for Comments (RFC) documents, following in the path blazed by the June 1973 RFC 527 called ARPAWOCKY, a parody of Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem "Jabberwocky". The following list also includes humorous RFCs published on other dates.

List of April Fools' Day RFCs
1978
  • M. Crispin (1 April 1978). TELNET RANDOMLY-LOSE Option. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC0748. RFC 748. Unknown.
A parody of the TCP/IP documentation style. For a long time it was specially marked in the RFC index with "note date of issue".
1989
1990
Updated by RFC 2549 in 1999; see below. Describes protocol for transmitting IP packets by homing pigeon.
In 2001, RFC 1149 was actually implemented[1] by members of the Bergen Linux User Group.
See also RFC 6214, as noted below. Describes the adaptation of RFC 1149 for IPv6.
Further information: IP over Avian Carriers
1991
1992
1993
1994
Attributed to William Shakespeare.
1995
1996
1997
1998
This RFC is not solely for entertainment; the described protocol has regularly been implemented at hacker events in Europe.
Further information: Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol
1999
Further information: IP over Avian Carriers
2000
Concerning the practicalities of the infinite monkey theorem.
2001
2002
2003
Proposal for the 'evil bit', as an option in the IPv4 packet header. Later, this became a synonym for all attempts to seek simple technical solutions for difficult human social problems which require the willing participation of malicious actors.
Further information: Evil bit
2004
2005
Notable for containing PDP-10 assembly language code nearly 22 years after the manufacturer ceased production of the PDP-10, and for being technically possible as opposed to many of these other proposals.
2007
Further information on its implementation: Semaphore Flag Signaling System
Further information on competing ways of using flags to convey messages: Flag semaphore
2008
2009
Implemented on Facebook by the author, in the process of writing the RFC.[2]
2010
2011
Further information: IP over Avian Carriers
2012
2013
2014
Updates RFC 2324 for coffee machines which are also capable of brewing tea. Also defines the HTTP response code 418 I'm a Teapot, for teapots to use when unable to brew coffee.
Further information: Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol
2015
M. Wilhelm (1 April 2015). Scenic Routing for IPv6. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC7511. RFC 7511.
M. Luckie (1 April 2015). Really Explicit Congestion Notification (RECN). IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC7514. RFC 7514.
2016
An April 1st RFC was not published this year.[3]
2017
M. Danielson; M. Nilsson (1 April 2017). Complex Addressing in IPv6. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC8135. RFC 8135.
B. Carpenter (1 April 2017). Additional Transition Functionality for IPv6. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC8136. RFC 8136.
A. Farrel (1 April 2017). The Arte of ASCII: Or, An True and Accurate Representation of an Menagerie of Thynges Fabulous and Wonderful in Ye Forme of Character. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC8140. RFC 8140.
2018
T. Mizrahi; J. Yallouz (1 April 2018). Wrongful Termination of Internet Protocol (IP) Packets. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC8367. RFC 8367.
H. Kaplan (1 April 2018). Internationalizing IPv6 Using 128-Bit Unicode. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC8369. RFC 8369.
2019
E. Fokschaner (1 April 2019). Hypertext Jeopardy Protocol (HTJP/1.0). IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC8565. RFC 8565.
E. Rye; R. Beverly (1 April 2019). Customer Management DNS Resource Records. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC8567. RFC 8567.
2020
Mayrhofer, A.; Hague, J. (1 April 2020). The Internationalized Deliberately Unreadable Network NOtation (I-DUNNO). IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC8771. RFC 8771.
M. Welzl (1 April 2020). The Quantum Bug. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC8774. RFC 8774.
2021
G. Grover; N. ten Oever; C. Cath; S. Sahib (1 April 2021). Establishing the Protocol Police. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC8962. RFC 8962.
2022
J. Snijders; C. Morrow; R. van Mook (1 April 2022). Software Defects Considered Harmful. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC9225. RFC 9225.
M. Breen (1 April 2022). Bioctal: Hexadecimal 2.0. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC9226. RFC 9226.
2023
S. Toyosawa (1 April 2023). The Addition of the Death (DTH) Flag to TCP. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC9401. RFC 9401.
M. Basaglia; J. Bernards; J. Maas (1 April 2023). Concat Notation. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC9402. RFC 9402.
C. GPT; R. L. Barnes, Ed. (1 April 2023). AI Sarcasm Detection: Insult Your AI without Offending It. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC9405. RFC 9405.

Other humorous RFCs

Non-RFC IETF humor

Submission of April Fools' Day RFCs

The RFC Editor accepts submission of properly formatted April Fools' Day RFCs from the general public, and considers them for publication in the same year if received at least two weeks prior to April 1st.[4][5] This practice of publishing April Fool's Day RFCs is specifically acknowledged in the instructions memo for RFC authors, with a tongue-in-cheek note saying: "Note that in past years the RFC Editor has sometimes published serious documents with April 1 dates. Readers who cannot distinguish satire by reading the text may have a future in marketing."[4]

References
  1. "RFC 1149 implemented". Blug.linux.no. Archived from the original on 2011-10-04. Retrieved 2012-03-18.
  2. E. Vyncke. "IPv6 over the Facebook Social Network".
  3. Flanagan, Heather (2 April 2016). "hey, guys, where 1 april 2016 RFC. Ups..." rfc-i (Mailing list).
  4. "Instructions to Request for Comments (RFC) Authors". Archived from the original on 2012-03-27. Retrieved 2012-03-18.
  5. "IETF RFC-Editor FAQ, Q20: How can I submit an April 1st RFC?". Rfc-editor.org. 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2012-03-18.

Further reading
  • Marsan, Carolyn Duffy (April 1, 2005). "Yet Another Foolish Network Protocol". Network World – on RFC 3751 and April Fools' Day RFCs in general.
  • Limoncelli, Thomas A.; Peter H. Salus (2007). The Complete April Fools' Day RFCs. Peer-to-Peer Communications. ISBN 978-1-57398-042-5.
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