IP-over-DNS has already been done.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7619259

As has IP over ICMP echo requests, which I have actually found useful: http://code.gerade.org/hans/

Just curious, what use did you find for this?

Its useful for reading your email on those 'free' wifi networks that require you to give your name, address mothers maiden name, and credit card before getting http access.

Tunnelling into networks and bypassing proxies, ancient IDSes and ineffective monitoring systems.

DNS-over-HTTPS-over-Tor-over-DNS-over-ICMP is where it's at. None of the three-letter agencies can eavesdrop on your DNS queries now! It might even be faster than RFC 1149.

https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt

Not if you actually use RFC 1149. You're operating at layer 1 and 2 when you rely on birds.

I'm waiting for the day when RFC 1149 is expanded to incorporate a layer 2 tunnelling protocol. I suspect this issue is not the initial encapsulation but how to extract the original frame without it getting mangled.

> It might even be faster than RFC 1149

Depends on definition of fast, the latency indeed could be better, but your bandwidth is only limited by the size of your USB stick, and most often would be much faster than current solutions.

Not just HTTP but you can TCP-over-DNS:

    apt-get install dns2tcp

Pretty easy to use too (though development seems to have stopped)

Don't those networks hijack DNS to display captive portals? I always like poking around domains on "free limited-browsing" networks trying to get an open connection to the open web.

Not all of them. Some of them hijack HTTP, so you resolve your destination address as usual, but when you actually attempt to connect, you're redirected. This seems to be becoming less common, though, unfortunately.