<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">On Feb 11, 2022, at 8:33 AM, Tom Beecher <<a href="mailto:beecher@beecher.cc" class="">beecher@beecher.cc</a>> wrote:<br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><meta charset="UTF-8" class=""><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class="">The prediciate assumption that "pinging one destination is a valid check that my internet works' is INCORRECT. There is no magical unicorn that could be built that could make that true, and 'they're gonna do it anyways' is a poor excuse to even consider it. </div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class=""><div class="">The predicate assumption that unsuccessful pinging one destination is a valid check that my internet DOES NOT work' is ALSO INCORRECT. Still no magical unicorn. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I am disappointed but not surprised to see this discussion on NANOG. Encouraging Users to use a tool (that is often ignored by the hardware targeted) by providing a non-revenue-creating special target does not make business sense.</div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">An allied issue is educating ‘Users’ about traceroute AKA sequential ping with TTL progression:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><ul class="MailOutline"><li class=""> Seeing missing or excessively long traceroute results from intermediate nodes does NOT indicate a real problem, especially when the target node is reachable with acceptable delay. </li></ul><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I’ve lost count of my replies on user forums explaining this issue, even to otherwise well educated users. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">To be blunt, browsing to <a href="http://amazon.com" class="">amazon.com</a>, <a href="http://apple.com" class="">apple.com</a> or another vendor site is a simple and easy to teach Internet aliveness check and, at least, offers the chance for the targeted vendor site to receive revenue from sales. I have no crisis of conscience from clicking an vendor shortcut for a basic end-to-end Internet functional test. Or for teaching a User to do the same. This meets the business purpose locally and requires no $pecial effort from Users, network providers, or target systems. This precludes memorization of IP addresses by end Users thus reducing the offered load from the likes of excessive ping 8.8.8.8. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I would expect NANOG members to have favorite ping target addresses based on their environment, e.g., default router and a few designated targets. These are useful for manual debugging but, as mentioned previously, are not suitable as singular input to network monitoring.</div></div></body></html>