RFC 748

RFC 748 💖 TELNET RANDOMLY-LOSE Option

okay bestie, let's get into it 🎀 this one is from 1 April 1978, so yes, it's a prank, and it's an absolutely iconic one 💅

Here's the lowdown on the paperwork:

• Network Working Group 🌸
• Request for Comments 748, also labelled NWG/RFC# 748 at the top of each page
• Author: M. Crispin, SU-AI
• NIC 44125 (the page headers also say MRC 1-APR-78 44125)
• Date: 1 April 1978
• It doesn't name a category, and it doesn't obsolete or update anything 🦋

1. Command name and code ✨

Here's the option's name and its number:

RANDOMLY-LOSE        256

2. Command meanings 🫶

Okay so there are four commands, and they each mean something different, so pay attention 👀

• IAC WILL RANDOMLY-LOSE: the sender REQUESTS permission to randomly lose, or confirms that it will 🙈
• IAC WON'T RANDOMLY-LOSE: the sender REFUSES to randomly lose. Absolutely not, no cap 💀
• IAC DO RANDOMLY-LOSE: the sender REQUESTS that the receiver randomly lose, or gives the receiver permission to do it 🍓
• IAC DON'T RANDOMLY-LOSE: the sender DEMANDS that the receiver not randomly lose. Main character energy 👑

3. Default 🧚

If nothing is negotiated, this is what's going on:

WON'T RANDOMLY-LOSE

DON'T RANDOMLY-LOSE

i.e., random lossage will not happen. Literally zero chaos by default 💜

4. Motivation for the option 😭

Okay, the tea is that several hosts seem to offer random lossage as part of their services. We're talking system crashes, lost data, programs that just don't work right, the whole chaotic buffet 🌈 These features are often undocumented and are honestly super confusing for novice users. So there needs to be a general way for the user to turn them off. Girl, we deserve that 🫶

5. Description of the option 🔥

The normal mode doesn't allow random lossage. That means the system isn't allowed to crash, mung user files, and so on ✨ If the server wants to provide random lossage, it must first ask the user for permission by sending IAC WILL RANDOMLY-LOSE.

If the user wants to let the server randomly lose, they reply with IAC DO RANDOMLY-LOSE. Otherwise, they send IAC DONT RANDOMLY-LOSE, and the server is forbidden from randomly losing. Period 💅

The user can also ask the server to randomly lose by sending IAC DO RANDOMLY-LOSE. Then the server has two options:

• It replies with IAC WILL RANDOMLY-LOSE, which means it will go ahead and do some random lossage. The spec recommends garbaging disk files for an initial implementation 🗑️💀
• It sends IAC WONT RANDOMLY-LOSE, which means it insists on being reliable 🧚

Since this is implemented as a TELNET option, servers that don't implement it are expected to not randomly lose. In other words, they'll provide 100% reliable uptime. Iconic behaviour, honestly 🎀