Pinged by a computer what does that mean and should I block the IP?

[Denvers Dawgs]

I was just checking through my McAfee programs and decided to check my inbound events. I have listings from my host (Event TCP port....blahblah). But I have many of these types of events that I don't know if they are good, or should be there. Events like ICMP Ping with hosts ending in .de. When I ran a trace most where out of the US (europe). What does it mean if it says a computer is pinging me? Is that good or bad? Should I ban these IPs form out of country?

Thanks for any info you can give me....

[Wile_E]

They are probably trying to confirm there is a computer at that IP address. If I were you, I would turn off ping reply from your computer. Your firewall or router should have the option to block pings. This will make your computer more stealthy.

[Denvers Dawgs]

I just looked into my McAfee Firewall and the box that says "Allow ICMP Ping requests" is unchecked. So why would it still be allowing the pings?

And I was unable to find anything on my linksys router about ICMP Pings?

[nic2k4]

The log tells you what happened, with Ping not allowed your PC is not sending a reply to the ping, but the requests still get logged.

[psx_pirate]

In your Linksys router settings look under 'security' and find setting for 'Block Anonymous Internet Requests' ... set this to 'Enabled' .... this will prevent the ping requests from reaching your pc .... the router will just ignore them and no response will be sent

[Denvers Dawgs]

The Block Aninymous internet Requests box is checked off on my Linksys already. So how am I still receiving ping requests?

[psx_pirate]

The Block Aninymous internet Requests box is checked off on my Linksys already. So how am I still receiving ping requests?

It is possible that the ping requests are related to sites you are visiting ... in which case they are not annonymous requests and will still get through .... most are harmless anyway but your software firewall will block them .... this is why its always worth having a software firewall as well as a hardware firewall or router

[Denvers Dawgs]

Ok....I just wasn't sure if this pinging was a bad thing....So maybe those are sites that I have visited that's why they are pinging me...

[ahhaa]

There are bits of software sometimes called beacons that are imbedded in email, webpages, downloaded software, etc; they are supposed to do mundane stuff like inform a server you are online so an auto-update can be sent to you, but they have darkside uses as well.

I was kinda stunned myself, when I looked at my Norton list of internet-enabled programs, it had a couple dozen- but when I told Norton to scan for internet-enabled programs, it found a couple hundred! (Why is Solitare net enabled?:])

If you download a lot, even if you don't install everything, you may get driven paranoid by all the I/O activity.

The Kerio firewall (recommened by someone here) is really helpful in determining what going on, and there are freebie utilities that will actually draw you a trace of the route being used to contact your machine.

[thecoalman]

There are bits of software sometimes called beacons that are imbedded in email.

The ones embedded in e-mail are usually samll transparent gifs linked to external sources. The file name is particualar to that email, when the server gets a hit for that file it knows that the email address is live and the email was opened. Any recent email client should be blocking any external content unless you allow it. To absolutely eliminate it change your settings to plain text.

[rubberman]

couldnt it also be your ISP checking to see what ports are open, checking to see if your running a server or similar

[Denvers Dawgs]

No the ISP pings are labeled ####.comcast