crazytasty

Draft 1

Item #: SCP-XXXX (Mainlist title "Reserved for Future Use")

Object Class: Euclid Neutralized¹

Special Containment Procedures: At of 2010-02-08 01:43:28 GMT, all traffic from SCP-XXXX-1 ceased. All Foundation packet analysis and filtering appliances should remain configured to log and discard any packets with source IP address in SCP-XXXX-1.

+ Archived Containment Procedures

Due to the nature of SCP-XXXX-2, SCP-XXXX is not completely containable, but continuous iteration of containment procedures has limited known public discovery of SCP-XXXX-2 instances to 0.03% as of 2017-12 monthly review.

Successful containment of SCP-XXXX is achieved through two major techniques:

1. Foundation assets embedded in the Internet Engineering Task Force ensured the addition of Section 4 to RFC 1112 in August 1989 to prevent the assignment of IP addresses ranging from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255 (designated SCP-XXXX-1). This was later updated in 2011 with RFC 6890 designating the subnet 224.0.0.0/4 as "Reserved for Future Use", as records show that public assignment of IPs in this range will begin by 20██.

1. Foundation code is inserted using antimemetic programming techniques into all hardware and software implementations of TCP/IP to ensure bogon filtering² will never log any traffic originating from an IP within SCP-XXXX-1.

Foundation web crawlers should continuously monitor for posts describing traffic matching the pattern of SCP-XXXX-1 and remove them. MTF Gamma-8 ("Transmission Control") should be dispatched to amnestitize the post's author and wipe any local records regarding SCP-XXXX.

Description: SCP-XXXX is a phenomenon whereby TCP and UDP traffic (collectively designated SCP-XXXX-2) originating from the 224.0.0.0/4 subnet is delivered ██ years, 4 months, 12 days, 43 minutes and 9 seconds before it is sent. Due to the fact that traffic from this subnet has continued since 1982, it is believed that traffic must also be delivered properly at the time of transmission, though this remains unprovable at this time.

The phenomenon was initially discovered shortly after the integration of TCP/IP into ARPANET in 1982. Due to fears from Foundation futurists regarding networked computers spontaneously generating artificial intelligence³, Foundation researchers were embedded within several academic institutions and were deeply involved with the development of TCP/IP.

During initial conversion of ARPANET to TCP/IP, TCP data not matching any known protocol was logged from IPs originating in SCP-XXXX-2. Due to most of the data appearing randomized (later determined to be encrypted with TLS 1.0), it was assumed to be a bug or a prank, prompting the following mail message:

Date: 26 August 1982 1430-EDT
From:██████ ████████ at ████████
To: ████ ██████ at ██████████,
███ ██████████ at ██████████,
Grant Hewitt at ██████████
Okay, very funny, guys. I just logged a packet matching the NTP draft spec⁴ showing a time in 20██. I'm sure you've had fun putting us all on a wild goose chase looking for these packets from Mars (now future Mars, I guess?), but knock it off already.

Immediately thereafter, the following mail was received by Foundation researcher Grant Hewitt:

Date: 26 August 1982 1431-EDT
From:null at null
To: Grant Hewitt at ██████████
When you were 14 [EXTRANEOUS INFORMATION REDACTED]. You're going to report this to someone who had a recurring dream where [EXTRANEOUS INFORMATION REDACTED].
We're going to say what we can since this necessarily has to be in plaintext. The timestamp was right, but this won't be the warning system you're already hoping it will be. TAD⁵ deems the risk too great except in the worst scenarios. You know the Kind we mean. Not to mention that fact that we have no way of encrypting this in a way that is both useful to you and unbreakable to our competition. Speaking of our competition: despite the utility, we're going to try and fix this so they don't expose you to any hazardous info. Keep an eye out for anything coming from 229.3.███.███. We'll keep that IP and only use it for warnings, or for confirmation we've fixed this. Either one will come with the code you're about to think up.
Also, a bird will fly into your window at 1612.

After authentication of the message's contents,

Addendum: [Optional additional paragraphs]

Unused

Footnotes

1. See addendum XXXX-A

2. The process of discarding traffic that comes from an invalid IP address

3. At the time, ARPANET was by far the largest collection of networked computers

4. Network Time Protocol, an (at the time only proposed) method of synchronizing clocks between computers

5. Temporal Anomalies Department