"broadcast ping" message

[John Polstra]

In article <20030416105033.H46401-100000 at moo.sysabend.org>,
Jamie Bowden  <ragnar at sysabend.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Apr 2003, John Polstra wrote:
> 
> > To make a FreeBSD system respond to broadcast pings, you have to set
> > the sysctl variable net.inet.icmp.bmcastecho to 1.
> 
> Shouldn't the default be to DTRT and respond unless disabled?  Until now,
> the only systems on my network that didn't respond to broadcast pings were
> my windows boxes, but I consider them broken by default.  Why has the
> default behavior changed, and isn't this a POLA issue?

It was changed for security reasons.  Responding to broadcast pings
creates several potential denial of service attacks.

John
-- 
  John Polstra
  John D. Polstra & Co., Inc.                        Seattle, Washington USA
  "Disappointment is a good sign of basic intelligence."  -- Chögyam Trungpa