In short, raw sockets can push bytes into the network card. Whereas the commonly used socket functions recv/send construct the required headers for TCP, UDP an

In short, raw sockets can push bytes into the network card. Whereas the commonly used socket functions recv/send construct the required headers for TCP, UDP and whatnot, they handle encapsulation/buffering/connection/etc so they're easy to use for developers, just read and write application data. By nature raw sockets skip TCP/UDP libraries and a good chunk of the network kernel code. Including the place where the bug was located.