IP over Petroleum Carriers (IPoPC)

RFC 9984

Status of This Memo

This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested. Distribution of this memo is unlimited, subject to pipeline capacity constraints at intermediate nodes.

Copyright Notice

Abstract

This document specifies a method for the transmission of IP datagrams over Petroleum Carriers (PC), including crude oil pipelines, tanker vessels, and, in extreme cases, diplomatic briefcases containing USB sticks soaked in oil for plausible deniability. This is an experimental, not recommended standard — except in regions where recommended standards have been replaced by pipelines.

1. Overview and Rationale

It has long been observed that certain entities will go to extraordinary lengths to move petroleum from point A to point B, including constructing pipelines across multiple sovereign nations, routing supertankers around entire continents, and negotiating treaties that outlast the governments that signed them. It was therefore proposed — over a barrel of crude, literally — that this delivery infrastructure could be repurposed for IP datagram transmission.

The foundational observation is Tanenbaum's famous dictum: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway" [TANENBAUM]. This RFC upgrades the station wagon to a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) hurtling around the Cape of Good Hope.

The carrier medium is oil itself. Data is encoded into the viscosity, sulfur content, API gravity, and the arrangement of contaminants in each barrel. A "light sweet crude" barrel carries a higher bit density than a "heavy sour" barrel, establishing the first naturally occurring QoS gradient in networking history.

2. Physical Layer Specification

2.1. Medium

The transmission medium SHALL be crude oil, refined petroleum, or any hydrocarbon mixture whose flow is constrained by a pipe, a hull, or a handshake agreement. Transmission MAY also occur via liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers, though this introduces additional compression overhead and requires cryogenic header processing at 111 K.

2.2. Bit Encoding

Bits are encoded using Differential Viscosity Encoding (DVE):

   Bit 1:  Light crude, API gravity > 31.1 degrees
   Bit 0:  Heavy crude, API gravity <= 22.3 degrees
   Bit ?:  Blend of unclear origin, commonly used for padding

   Error correction is applied at the receiving refinery.
   Corrupted packets SHOULD be re-distilled.  Packets that cannot
   be recovered MUST be burned at a flare stack (implementing a
   hardware-level discard mechanism, at a cost to the environment).

2.3. Frame Format

Each IP datagram is encapsulated in a standard 42-US-gallon barrel (159 liters, SI). The barrel header is stamped on the lid. IPv6 addresses MUST NOT be used on pipelines constructed before 1991, as the address space exceeds available barrel-labeling capacity and no sticker manufacturer has agreed to the necessary font size.

3. Carrier Classes

The following carrier classes are defined, in decreasing order of latency and increasing order of geopolitical complexity:

Class	Carrier	Approx. Latency	Notes
Express	Direct pipeline (e.g., Druzhba, 4,000 km)	10–14 days	Preferred; subject to sanctions
Standard	Supertanker via Strait of Hormuz	3–6 weeks	Congestion possible
Economy	Tanker rerouted around Cape of Good Hope	6–10 weeks	Same bandwidth, longer delay
Diplomatic	Briefcase, hand-carried by attaché	12–48 hours	1–2 USB sticks; oil optional
Steganographic	Oil blended into imported goods	Indeterminate	Bandwidth: classified

Carriers MUST NOT be confused with Avian Carriers as specified in RFC 1149 [RFC1149] and amended by RFC 2549 [RFC2549], though pipelines have been observed to share right-of-way with migratory routes. No cross-protocol encapsulation is defined at this time.

4. Quality of Service

4.1. Pipeline QoS

The Druzhba pipeline ("Friendship Pipeline"), spanning approximately 4,000 km across Eastern Europe, demonstrates that QoS can be enforced politically rather than technically. Preferred traffic is forwarded at full line rate. Disfavored traffic is subject to:

   - Unexplained pressure drops
   - Rerouting through Belarus
   - Indefinite queueing at a pumping station pending diplomatic review

The service class of a packet SHOULD be indicated by its country of origin. Transit packets are subject to a "transit fee" implemented as per-hop packet shaving: a small percentage of each barrel is retained at intermediate nodes. This is not theft; it is documented hop-by-hop overhead.

4.2. Tanker QoS

VLCC-class carriers support bulk transfer with very high throughput but extreme latency. The effective bandwidth of a single supertanker carrying 2,000,000 barrels of encoded data can exceed the aggregate throughput of the global internet, provided the destination can decode the cargo in a reasonable time.

Round-trip time (RTT) for a ping to the Persian Gulf is approximately 6 weeks. TCP handshakes are not recommended. UDP is preferred. Acknowledgements are delivered by the return tanker. Selective retransmission MUST wait for the next sailing.

4.3. The Cape of Good Hope Reroute

When the Suez Canal becomes unavailable (due to geopolitical events, a grounded container ship, or a harbormaster's administrative disposition), packets MUST be rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope. This increases latency by approximately 2–3 weeks but is otherwise transparent to the application layer. DNS TTLs SHOULD be adjusted accordingly. Applications with timeouts shorter than 10 weeks are NOT RECOMMENDED over this path.

5. Routing

Routing decisions are made by a combination of OSPF (Oil State Path Finding) and BGP (Barrel Gateway Protocol). BGP route announcements are made at OPEC summits and are effective until the next summit or a unanimous vote to the contrary, whichever comes first. Route flapping has been observed to correlate strongly with oil price volatility.

The longest configured petroleum route currently in active use is the Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean Pipeline (ESPO), spanning 4,857 km. Packets injected at Taishet emerge at Kozmino on the Pacific coast, where the default gateway is a tanker fleet.

Static routes MUST NOT be configured in politically unstable regions, as the next-hop may cease to be reachable without prior notice. Loose source routing is common practice. Strict source routing is available only to vertically integrated energy majors.

6. MIB and Management Issues

   OilCarrier OBJECT-TYPE
     SYNTAX       SEQUENCE OF Hydrocarbons
     MAX-ACCESS   physically-constrained
     STATUS       pressurized
     DESCRIPTION  "A barrel of crude oil carrying one or more
                   IP datagrams encoded in viscosity differentials.
                   The object is self-routing under a sufficient
                   pressure gradient."
     ::= { earth crust sedimentary organic Jurassic trapped
           anticline reservoir wellhead pipeline refinery }

   FlowRate OBJECT-TYPE
     SYNTAX       Gauge(0..1400000)  -- barrels per day
     MAX-ACCESS   read-only
     STATUS       current
     DESCRIPTION  "Current throughput of the pipeline segment.
                   Subject to sudden reduction upon sanctions."
     ::= { OilCarrier 1 }

Carriers naturally route in the direction of lowest elevation and highest political motivation. Bulk retrieval is possible using the Get-Pumping operator. The Set-Pumping operator requires board-level approval and an energy minister's countersignature.

7. Specification of Requirements

In this document, several words are used to signify the requirements of the specification. These words are often capitalized.

   MUST      As agreed in the treaty.

   MUST NOT  Explicitly prohibited in the treaty that was signed
             but never ratified.

   SHOULD    Strongly encouraged, pending regulatory review.

   MAY       Subject to market conditions.

   SHALL     Enshrined in a long-term supply contract of 30 years.

   OPTIONAL  Available only to countries that have agreed to price
             the barrel in USD.

8. Security Considerations

Physical access to the pipeline constitutes a man-in-the-middle attack. Countermeasures include heavily armed perimeter patrols and the persistent fiction that all anomalies are caused by "technical faults" of unclear origin.

Eavesdropping is difficult, as real-time monitoring of pipeline viscosity requires specialized equipment and a postgraduate degree in geopolitics.

Denial-of-service attacks MAY be conducted by closing a valve. Re-opening the valve requires diplomatic intervention and, in several documented cases, a summit meeting and a side agreement on unrelated matters.

Data exfiltration via "product contamination" has been observed. Affected carriers MUST be purged before reuse. In rare cases, the entire pipeline has been flushed, causing cascading failures at downstream refineries. These incidents are classified as Layer 1 Security Events.

Encryption is provided by the inherent opacity of crude oil.

9. Patent Considerations

Several parties have claimed intellectual property rights over the concept of moving oil long distances. These claims predate the internet by approximately 100 years. Ongoing litigation concerns whether a pipeline constitutes a "connection-oriented" or "connectionless" medium, and who owns the packets in transit. The IETF takes no position on the matter, as the IETF does not own any pipelines.

10. Known Limitations

   - Jitter is caused by pumping station pressure cycles and,
     occasionally, earthquakes or unscheduled geopolitical events.

   - Multicast is not supported.  Each barrel carries exactly one
     copy of the packet.  Replication requires additional drilling.

   - IPv6 transition remains stalled pending OPEC approval.

   - The medium is flammable.  Packet storms are literally dangerous.

   - Traceroute round-trip time is measured in weeks.  The return
     path rarely matches the outbound path.

   - Jumbograms are not recommended due to lack of barrel
     standardization above 159 liters.

11. References

11.1. Normative References

[RFC1149] Waitzman, D., "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers", RFC 1149, 1 April 1990. <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1149>

[RFC2549] Waitzman, D., "IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service", RFC 2549, 1 April 1999. <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2549>

11.2. Informative References

[TANENBAUM] Tanenbaum, A.S., "Computer Networks", Prentice Hall, various editions. ("Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.")

[XKCD-31] Munroe, R., "FedEx Bandwidth", XKCD What If, #31. <https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/>

[DRUZHBA] "Druzhba Pipeline", Global Energy Monitor, 2026. <https://www.gem.wiki/Druzhba_Oil_Pipeline>

[OPEC-RT] OPEC, "Routing Table Updates", presented at the Vienna Summit, Q4 2025. Document status: indefinitely pending.

12. Acknowledgements

The author thanks all nations that have demonstrated, through heroic feats of engineering and diplomacy, that no distance is too great to move hydrocarbons. Special thanks to the Druzhba pipeline for over 60 years of uninterrupted experimental operation, and to all supertanker captains who have successfully navigated the Cape of Good Hope without packet loss.

David Waitzman > RFC 1149 > RFC 2549 . ack 9984 win 2000000bbl (DF)

13. Author's Address

   I. Petrov
   State Oil Concern Ltd.
   1 Pipeline Avenue
   Somewhere, Eastern Europe

   Phone: Ask the operator
   Email: oil@/dev/null

14. Full Copyright Statement

This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published, and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way that increases its sulfur content above 0.5% by weight, except as needed for the purpose of improving compatibility with heavy sour routing environments.

This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FARCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR CAUSE ANY ENVIRONMENTAL INCIDENT REQUIRING A GOVERNMENT INQUIRY.