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There's gotta be a term for what just happened in this thread, because it's something I've seen several times on HN. Person A makes a statement against X, Pers

There's gotta be a term for what just happened in this thread, because it's something I've seen several times on HN. Person A makes a statement against X, Person B challenges the statement saying "if you're against X, why aren't you against Y?" when X is a subset of Y, then person A says "I'm against Y too" It just seems odd to me because the original statement against X is very specific, so it implies that they only dislike A. To give a simple example, imagine someone saying "I hate red Mazda Miatas" when the truth is that they hate red cars in general. It's just so odd and misleading to be so specific when the truth is far more general. I think the point I'm trying to make is...if you're blocking ALL traffic, including ICMP, from sources you consider trash, then why would you start the conversation with "I block ICMP"? Why go out of your way to create such a miscommunication? More importantly, how is your general viewpoint even relevant to a topic that's specifically about ICMP?

eqvinox 1y ago
I didn't follow up because one of those terms is "having autism". Or rather, I know a person who, understanding why this confuses/riles people, is putting active effort into not doing it, and is saying it's an aspect of autistic behavior for them. Of course autism is hugely variable, but context-related communication problems like this seem relatively common with high-functioning autism (where communication skills are close to the normie spectrum). Some people just do it to troll, though. It's rather silly, considering they're kneecapping their own communications, but… as with all trolls, non-engagement tends to be the best option. (So I'm non-engaging for 2 distinct reasons.)
BLKNSLVR 1y ago
The topic was specifically ICMP, so I addressed that. I didn't want to stray too far off topic, so I left it at that. I had / have a little project running that detects "uninvited activity" on my systems, and blocks traffic (including ICMP) to and from those sources based on a few rules. https://github.com/UninvitedActivity/UninvitedActivity https://github.com/UninvitedActivity/UninvitedActivity It needs some maintenance, so I sometimes avoid mentioning it. ICMP can be a special case because of the reasons mentioned in the article and other replies, such is why I addressed it separately from other types of blocking (eg. ports). The main point I wanted to make in my original comment was that my blocking of ICMP from 'trash' sources causes my internet experience no problems; that whilst blanket blocking ICMP may not be a good idea, selective blocking doesn't seem to be a problem.

eqvinox 1y ago

I didn't follow up because one of those terms is "having autism". Or rather, I know a person who, understanding why this confuses/riles people, is putting active effort into not doing it, and is saying it's an aspect of autistic behavior for them. Of course autism is hugely variable, but context-related communication problems like this seem relatively common with high-functioning autism (where communication skills are close to the normie spectrum). Some people just do it to troll, though. It's rather silly, considering they're kneecapping their own communications, but… as with all trolls, non-engagement tends to be the best option. (So I'm non-engaging for 2 distinct reasons.)

BLKNSLVR 1y ago

The topic was specifically ICMP, so I addressed that. I didn't want to stray too far off topic, so I left it at that. I had / have a little project running that detects "uninvited activity" on my systems, and blocks traffic (including ICMP) to and from those sources based on a few rules. https://github.com/UninvitedActivity/UninvitedActivity https://github.com/UninvitedActivity/UninvitedActivity It needs some maintenance, so I sometimes avoid mentioning it. ICMP can be a special case because of the reasons mentioned in the article and other replies, such is why I addressed it separately from other types of blocking (eg. ports). The main point I wanted to make in my original comment was that my blocking of ICMP from 'trash' sources causes my internet experience no problems; that whilst blanket blocking ICMP may not be a good idea, selective blocking doesn't seem to be a problem.