[Outages-discussion] [outages] Ping to Google 8.8.8.8

[Mark Tinka]

On 2/9/22 08:55, Matthew Walster wrote:

>
> As I've recently been informed, certain shipping hardware from a big 
> name manufacturer does liveness checks every second to 8.8.8.8 via 
> ICMP. It's gone past diagnostics during a fault, it's now being 
> treated as a public facility.

Lost of vendors (even the unknown ones) do this.

When I look at default DNS and liveliness settings in many CPE, 8.8.8.8 
is just about always there.


>
> What's more, it's being treated as a canonical source of information 
> despite protests by the people operating the service that happens to 
> give that side effect, and complaints being raised when it is rate 
> limited due to abuse.

Most folk don't read the FAQ's of Google et al, about not using their 
network for liveliness detection. They just assume it's the magic of the 
Internet, and will last forever.


>
> It doesn't matter what is invented to replace it, "ping 8.8.8.8" is 
> very fast to type, easy to remember, and is probably going to take the 
> same amount of time to disappear as people setting 4.2.2.2 as their 
> nameserver did.

If Google significantly rate-limit or block 8.8.8.8 in a way that causes 
hardship, whatever is invented to replace it will catch on pretty quick.

Mark.