Ping flooding (fwd)

Tue Jul 9 04:10:04 UTC 1996

George Eddy writes:
> According to: Michael Dillon
> > Are there any procedures in place to track down this kind of network
> > abuse. In particular, is it possible that it is a stealth attack?
> > Before you answer, take note that this is going to appear in Bob
> > Metcalfe's column next week.

[BTW, tracking down this sort of thing is pretty easy, it just
requires some cooperation.]

> what is, how to forge a ping attack expiditing the eminent death of
> the net?  :)

Look, if someone actually wanted to shut the net down next week, and
was smart enough, they could. I've said this at various times and
places with various degrees of loudness. Ping attacks aren't the way
to do it, and indeed, I see no point in mentioning how since everyone
here worth their salt already knows what I'd say.

However, the situation is rapidly improving, and is well understood.

The reason Bob Metcalfe is a yellow journalist is not that he's
pointing out problems when there are none. Of course there are
problems. The problem is that he's talking about everything as if
people weren't working hard and as if the current crew was a bunch of
incompetants. In fact, of course, the opposite is true, but one can't
expect Metcalfe to to be objective. He has a grudge against most of
us, and he's unhappy that we've thought him silly and irrelevant.

Perry