On Thu, 30 Aug 2018 12:04:34 -0400 Alvin Starr via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
There are other ICMP messages that can be used for probing like timestamp(msg-13). All around all disabling ping does for you is to make it harder for your ISP or IT support people to see if you are having network problems and the really really stupid script kiddies trying to probe you.
Alvin, I am my ISP and IT support person. My Fedora laptop cannot be remotely administered. I am inconvenienced by this. If I want to do something with it, I have to get up and walk to where I have it stored. From the laptop, I can administer my desktop, because I have ssh set up. My desktop stays behind my firewall. My laptop gets exposed. I have been on a commercial site where the Windows laptops were administered remotely, from somewhere in the USA, I think. I don't know how secure they were. The company did not have particularly nasty security requirements, i.e. they were not managing people's personal data, or military secrets. -- Howard Gibson hgibson@eol.ca jhowardgibson@gmail.com http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson