From: "Geo" 

"John Beckett"  wrote
in message news:42184c6b.11728554{at}216.144.1.254...

> Yes, UDP is connectionless. But that comparison only applies in regard to
> TCP. We don't normally say that ICMP is connectionless because the purpose
> of ICMP is to pass a short pre-defined message, not to pass arbitrary data
> (although some hackers are using it for that now!). However, ICMP is
> connectionless.

I don't thing that's completely true, icmp causes an arp request at the
ethernet level so it's making a connection to the router, I don't think UDP
does this but it's been a while since I looked at the ethernet requirements
of the protocols so I could be wrong. You are right about end point
connections, I hadn't thought of that but yes I guess it is connectionless.

The hackers aren't really using ICMP for data transferrs anymore, they
played with it but most backbones dampen ICMP floods which is what a data
transfer using ICMP looks like so it didn't work real well except for
instant messaging types of stuff. If the packets come too fast or are too
large they end up getting blocked by the dampening settings in routers.

Originally it did work really well because ICMP gets some kind of priority
over other protocols in some of the networks in order to fake users into
believing the network is less heavily loaded than it really is. That's not
the case anymore though, I think they are playing with RTP or RTSP now
(cause it gets priority).

Geo.

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