For residential users on cable-modem, the plan will deplete a scarce resource:
upstream transmit opportunities. The DOCSIS MAC layer imposes an upper limit
on the quantity of upstream transmissions (essentially PPS limitation, unless
concatenation is employed, and concatenation is probably moot if standard
ping with 1-second minimum transmit intervals is the upstream payload).
If the load actually causes a problem in upstream operation, then folks using
TCP
for downstream service (e.g. surfing) will see their throughput cut.
Regardless, the cable companies will probably try to disable this service,
so they can avoid the financial impact of improving their infrastructure.
They need to conserve the money in order to launch new unsolicited bids for
Disney...
At 09:14 AM 11/29/2004, you wrote:
>Techdirt has an article this morning that discusses how
>Lycos Europe is encouraging their users to run a screensaver
>that constantly "pings servers suspected to be used by
>spammers" and also suggests that "In other words, it's a
>distributed denial of service attack against spammers by
>Lycos."
>
>The Techdirt article referenced is on Heise Online:
>
> http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/53697
>
>I'd be curious to hear what NANOG readers thoughts are on
>this.
>
>Techdirt is located at http://www.techdirt.com/
>
>- ferg
>
>--
>"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
> Engineering Architecture for the Internet
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] or
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
