Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

This is what happens under the hood of every ping request.


A ping is very much different. A ping is (typically) simply an ICMP Echo Request, (not TCP, thus no TLS, etc). The receiving device, if accepting echo requests and configured to reply with echo replies, then responds with an ICMP Echo Reply - or some device in the middle (or the device itself could respond with an ICMP unreachable, or some other response - or quite simply drop the ICMP Echo Request entirely and silently).

*Edited an incorrect UDP reference out based on the below comment.


If I'm not mistaken, its not UDP, it's ICMP, like you said


Ahh yeah - good call. Totally different protocol. I guess ICMP more closely resembles UDP at the end of the day, but you're absolutely right. I edited out the incorrect UDP reference so that a person reading for the first time will not get misled. Thanks!


Which is also why some poorly configured network devices firewalls will eat pings - if they for example whitelist tcp and udp protocols and drop everything else (yes, that's a bad idea).

https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/22711/is-it-a-b...


ping would refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_(networking_utility) in this context, which is quite unrelated to TLS.




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: