Anandtech supressing ping responses or my DNS problem?

[ST4RCUTTER]

Something weird just happened while I was fiddling around with my network tonight. I did a routine firmware upgrade on my Linksys router and decided to switch my WLAN from DHCP to static IP. After reconfiguring my etc/network/interfaces file on my Debian fileserver I issued </etc/init.d/networking restart> to reconnect under the new settings.
I then performed a ping to www.anandtech.com. I lost all packets so then I pinged the IP of www.anandtech.com (208.65.201.105) only to loose all packets. I also tried it from my Windows machine and received the same thing. Obviously I am able to resolve the host via HTTP or I wouldn't be able to make this post. Is there a firewall or something at Anandtech or their provider that is silencing pings to their domain? I can think of a number of reasons why they would do this, I've just always been able to ping the site in the past and I'm just curious...as always.

 

[cleverhandle]

No pings from AT here either.

 

[bruceb]

You are right .. can't ping this site ... it must be set to "not return a ping request"

 

[Cloud Strife]

Even though you set your WLAN IP to static, you're still going to have a dynamic IP from your ISP if you're on a consumer level tier.

Anandtech.com doesn't respond to pings but you can try www.google.com.

You can configure your router/firewall to not respond to pings.

 

[bruceb]

That is how I set my own firewall "to ignore incoming ping requests"

 

[Talcite]

It's good practice since this makes it harder for your system to be randomly discovered by a script kiddie. The only situation you wouldn't want it is when you're running a server. Kinda makes it hard to find out if your server's running when it doesn't respond while it's working, and it doesn't respond when it's not working either =p.

 

[spidey07]

It's standard practice to block all but the necessary ICMP traffic. Ping (echo and echo reply) is not included in this group.

Think about what ICMP stands for - Internet Control Messaging Protocol (may be off there), but basically you can use ICMP and all it's flavors to control the behavior of network and hosts.

so standard practice is to block all ICMP messages at the Internet router or firewall, and allow those that are necessary - like destination unreachible and MTU exceeded.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

Even though you set your WLAN IP to static, you're still going to have a dynamic IP from your ISP if you're on a consumer level tier.

Right...I'm aware of the DHCP that my ISP uses...I work for them! My question was just regarding the change to the Anandtech network. I used to be able to ping them and would often use this site to test IP and DNS routing issues. I too have my router set to ignore incoming ping requests and agree that it does increase your "stealth" on the net.

 

[Cloud Strife]

Originally posted by: ST4RCUTTER

Even though you set your WLAN IP to static, you're still going to have a dynamic IP from your ISP if you're on a consumer level tier.

Right...I'm aware of the DHCP that my ISP uses...I work for them! My question was just regarding the change to the Anandtech network. I used to be able to ping them and would often use this site to test IP and DNS routing issues. I too have my router set to ignore incoming ping requests and agree that it does increase your "stealth" on the net.

Don't ISP employees get free internet service?

 

[azev]

only when they are able to get service from the isp they worked for.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

Yes. I get free HSI from my company. It's just one of the employee benefits that come along with the job.