HOW TO: Netcomm NB9WMAXX and Firewall

[Callan Jefferson Davies]

> My advice: ignore grc.com. :-)


I'll pipe up here and agree with that statement - there's absolutely no 
need to go blocking pings.

I work for an ISP (Adam in Adelaide) and get this question a lot from 
customers, and also talk to a lot of customers that have gone and 
blocked pings.

Here's a couple of items for consideration :

  - people generally want to block pings to be protected against ping 
"floods"

  - blocking pings only stops your router from replying to pings, it 
doesn't stop someone sending you pings. so a ping flood can still happen.

  - these days, if someone wants to discover you on the Internet, 
they're probably going to port-scan you, not ping you. Once they port 
scan you, maybe they'll find a (web, mail, ssh etc) server. Then they'll 
try to exploit that server. If you're not running any servers, no 
problem. If you are running servers, then blocking pings won't offer any 
benefit.

  - if you're having issues with your Internet connection and you call 
your ISP, they're probably going to try a ping to see if your connection 
is online. Blocking pings makes technical support difficult!


The above just represents my thoughts, but if anyone reckons I'm wrong 
about something please do speak up!

Cheers
Callan