how secure is carrier-pigeon telecommunications?

[dances_wit...@yahoo.com]

Carrier pigeons were still used extensively and routinely during WWII

is there any information that this routing method, was ever
successfully compromised by any party?

[Chris McDonald]

dances_wit...@yahoo.com writes:

Packet loss resulting in denial of service attacks reported here:

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/09/08/29/1934251/Pigeon-Protocol-Finds-a-Practical-Purpose

--
Chris.

[rossum]

I do not know about WWII, but the Prussians used hawks against the
pigeon post into Paris in 1870/71.

rossum

[Gerard Bok]

On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:30:11 -0800 (PST),
dances_wit...@yahoo.com wrote:

Maybe the relevant rfc can shed some light on this subject.
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html

(Beware of the date though :-)

--
met vriendelijke groet,
Gerard Bok

[dances_wit...@yahoo.com]

Yes, standard history that pigeon carrier comms have successfully
been ==denialed-of-service== by classical-physics methods.

But the question was: have they ever been ==compromised== (e.g.,
spoofed/eavesdropped-without-indication) ?

[Gordon Burditt]

I don't know.

If you are suspicious enough of carrier pigeons that you're shooting
down pigeons, you can also try to recover the bodies and see if
they had messages. (This is harder if you're using hawks or falcons.)
Sometimes the message might be undamaged. You'd want to report
this to your superiors anyway to prove that you aren't wasting your
time. Now, what's the standard for sending messages by carrier
pigeons? Do you also encrypt? If not, the message was compromised
(the enemy read it), but it's NOT "without indication".

It's also quite possible that your spy with a bunch of pigeons got
caught (possession of pigeons alone is pretty damning during wartime)
and replaced with a enemy agent. The enemy agent can send a few
fake messages (or pass on real messages from pigeons that were shot
down) before he runs out of pigeons or does something that makes
the recipient suspicious. Now, what's the standard for sending
messages by carrier pigeons? Is there an authentication code?
(even familiar handwriting might work to detect this.)

[David Eather]

You would have to steal the other guys carrier pigeons even before you
could try. I suspect that would have been possible in WWI.