[NTLUG:Discuss] the ping thing

[sdenny]

> Pure speculation - but I wonder if it's something unique to WinNT-based
> web servers?

Its actually not _that_ uncommon to disable ping at the border
router.  Large highly-visible sites like MS are targets for
anti-social hacking behavior.  I'm surprised yahoo, netscape and
cnn haven't disabled it.

Once you put yourself on the other side of the picture, things
look very different.  Somewhere back on the MS empire side of the
fence there's a Cisco router jock trying to keep the MS network
afloat.  He probably has never used NT, but knows Crisco IOS in
his sleep.  He sees the daily ping denial-of-service attacks
against the empire and he took care of it the best way he knew
how.  Hence, a few people spoil it for everyone.

All that aside, I love ping and traceroute.  They are my friends.

And one final note.  A dirtly little secret is that the majority
of attacks against our network (other than spam) come from Linux
machines, typically located outside the US.  Its easy enough to
tell.  When you see someone punching on you, and you telnet back
to them, you get the friendly linux prompt more times than not.

Stephen Denny                                 mailto:sdenny at hex.net
Hex.Net Superhighway                             http://www.hex.net