INFORMATIONAL

Errata Exist

Independent Submission R. Hay Request for Comments: 5841 W. Turkal Category: Informational Google Inc. ISSN: 2070-1721 1 April 2010 TCP Option to Denote Packet Mood Abstract This document proposes a new TCP option to denote packet mood. Status of This Memo This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes. This is a contribution to the RFC Series, independently of any other RFC stream. The RFC Editor has chosen to publish this document at its discretion and makes no statement about its value for implementation or deployment. Documents approved for publication by the RFC Editor are not a candidate for any level of Internet Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741. Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5841. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Hay & Turkal Informational [Page 1]

RFC 5841 TCP Option to Denote Packet Mood 1 April 2010 1 . Introduction DSM-IV]. Packets cannot feel. They are created for the purpose of moving data from one system to another. However, it is clear that in specific situations some measure of emotion can be inferred or added. For instance, a packet that is retransmitted to resend data for a packet for which no ACK was received could be described as an 'angry' packet, or a 'frustrated' packet (if it is not the first retransmission for instance). So how can these kinds of feelings be conveyed in the packets themselves. This can be addressed by adding TCP Options [RFC793] to the TCP header, using ASCII characters that encode commonly used "emoticons" to convey packet mood. 1.1 . Terminology RFC2119]. 2 . Syntax RFC793]. It is proposed that option 25 (released 2000-12-18) be used to define packet mood. This option would have a length value of 4 or 5 bytes. All the simple emotions described as expressible via this mechanism can be displayed with two or three 7-bit, ASCII- encoded characters. Multiple mood options may appear in a TCP header, so as to express more complex moods than those defined here (for instance if a packet were happy and surprised). TCP Header Format Kind Length Meaning ---- -------- ------- 25 Variable Packet Mood Hay & Turkal Informational [Page 2]

RFC 5841 TCP Option to Denote Packet Mood 1 April 2010 3 . Simple Emotional Representation Hay & Turkal Informational [Page 3]

RFC 5841 TCP Option to Denote Packet Mood 1 April 2010 4 . Use Cases Section 5, "Performance Considerations"). Each application MUST define the preconditions for marking packets as happy, sad, bored, confused, angry, apathetic, and so on. This is a framework for defining how such moods can be expressed, but it is up to the developers to determine when to apply these encoded labels. Hay & Turkal Informational [Page 4]

RFC 5841 TCP Option to Denote Packet Mood 1 April 2010