In computer networking, Semaphore Flag Signaling System (SFSS) is a humorous proposal to carry Internet Protocol

Internet Protocol

The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...

 (IP) traffic

Internet traffic

-Historical Internet Traffic Growth:Because of the distributed nature of the Internet, there is no single point of measurement for total Internet traffic...

 by semaphores

Flag semaphore

Semaphore Flags is the system for conveying information at a distance by means of visual signals with hand-held flags, rods, disks, paddles, or occasionally bare or gloved hands. Information is encoded by the position of the flags; it is read when the flag is in a fixed position...

. Semaphore Flag Signaling System was initially described in RFC 4824, an April 1 RFC issued by the Internet Engineering Task Force

Internet Engineering Task Force

The Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite...

 edited by J. Hofmueller, et al. and released on April Fool's Day 2007. It is one of several April 1 RFCs.

Reference Implementation

A reference implementation of IP over SFS has been done by the authors of the RFC within the project "Talking the Fish".
An email was transmitted using SMTP over Semaphore Flag Signals.

See also

• Clacks, a system in a fictional world which uses another kind of semaphore to emulate the Internet
• IP over Avian Carriers
  IP over Avian Carriers
  In computer networking, IP over Avian Carriers is a humorously intended proposal to carry Internet Protocol traffic by birds such as homing pigeons. IP over Avian Carriers was initially described in RFC 1149, a Request for Comments issued by the Internet Engineering Task Force written by D....
  
  , a similar humorous proposal
• Semaphore
  Semaphore
  A semaphore telegraph, optical telegraph, shutter telegraph chain, Chappe telegraph, or Napoleonic semaphore is a system of conveying information by means of visual signals, using towers with pivoting shutters, also known as blades or paddles. Information is encoded by the position of the...
  
  , for other kinds of semaphores
• Victorian Internet
  Victorian Internet
  The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers is a 1998 book by Tom Standage. It is about the development and uses of the electric telegraph during the second half of the 19th Century and some of the similarities the telegraph shared...
  
  , for the serious relation between semaphore and the internet