Saint Smurf, Father of the Church and Multiplier of Pings

Patron of broadcast addresses, ICMP echoes, and those who shout in the square in someone else's name.

Life

On 5 January 1998 CERT published advisory CA-1998-01 on an attack named after the program smurf.c. You sent a ping to a network's broadcast address, forging the victim's address as the sender: every machine on the network answered in chorus, and the victim drowned under hundreds of replies it had never asked for. It was one of the first great amplification attacks.

Prayer

O Saint Smurf, who with a single voice makes a whole village answer, teach our routers not to forward other people's broadcasts. Amen.

How to celebrate

Celebrated with no ip directed-broadcast, now the default on routers, and a white Phrygian cap.

Call on everyone, and no one will want to hear from you.