That’s right folks, were talking HTCPCP 1.0!

For those of you who don’t know, HTCPCP stands for Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol. Let me explain…

Back in September when I started University, one of our first lab sessions for “Web and Media Development”, was looking up protocols on various given websites. One of the sites was http://ietf.org, which was when I remembered HTCPCP! I just HAD to look it up.

Low and behold, there was an article on HTCPCP, and its conception. The memo is 5 pages long, so I’ll talk about some of the best bits, and provide a link at the end of this post.

A coffee pot was not the first kitchen appliance to be controlled over the internet. I give you… The Internet Toaster! Controlled by SNMP in 1990, I’m sure the Internet Toaster was a grate success. So much so, I’m sure you still use yours, right?

The BREW method : Boil the water! “Coffee pots heat water using electronic mechanisms, so there is no fire. Thus, no firewalls are necessary, and firewall control policy is irrelevant.”

Say WHEN : Milk is offered, however the user must say WHEN enough is enough.

Accept-Additions header field : Like additional stuff in your coffee? No problem. Flavoured syrup, cream, whisky, rum, even non dairy milk for those unlucky people.

2.2.3 Omitted Header Fields : “No options were given for decaffeinated coffee. What’s the point?”

418 I’m a teapot : “The resulting entity body MAY be short and stout.”

Security Considerations : “Anyone who gets in between me and my morning coffee should be insecure. Unmoderated access to unprotected coffee pots from Internet users might lead to several kinds of “denial of coffee service” attacks.”

I can imagine some of you would HATE a denial of coffee service attack!  Any suggestions on what to do with people implementing DOCS attacks?

Link : http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2324.txt