Evil bit (nonfiction)

Screenshot of the April Fool's Day implementation of the RFC 5314 'Evil Bit' protocol.

The evil bit is a fictional IPv4 packet header field proposed in RFC 3514, a humorous April Fools' Day RFC from 2003 authored by Steve Bellovin.

The RFC recommended that the last remaining unused bit in the IPv4 packet header be used to indicate whether a packet had been sent with malicious intent, thus making computer security engineering an easy problem -- simply ignore any messages with the evil bit set.

In the News

• 

  August 20, 2018: Rogue military chemist tell reporters that Sweet, sweet crude oil is "mostly ordinary crude oil and Extract of Radium, with traces of evil bits and God knows what else."

• 

  This photograph, if genuine, may show the moment following the release of an evil bit by alleged supervillain Fugitive Rubies.

Fiction cross-reference

• Carnevale Tenebre
• Evil bit release
• Gnomon Algorithm
• Hollerith
• Killer Poke - software defect and contract killer for hire.
• Malvoleum - an evil grease derived from Sweet, sweet crude oil.
• Murder, Incorporated 1.1
• One If By Good, Zero If By Evil
• Ticketology

Nonfiction cross-reference

• April Fool (nonfiction)
• Evil (nonfiction)
• Malice (nonfiction)

External links:

• Evil bit @ Wikipedia