Sundials in the Shade: An Internet-wide Perspective on ICMP Timestamps

ICMP timestamp request and response packets have been standardized for nearly 40 years, but have no modern practical application, having been superseded by NTP. However, ICMP timestamps are not deprecated, suggesting that while hosts must support them, little attention is paid to their implementatio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Rye, Erik C, Beverly, Robert
Format Paper Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 20.03.2019
Subjects
Computer Science - Networking and Internet Architecture
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Internet
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Summary:ICMP timestamp request and response packets have been standardized for nearly 40 years, but have no modern practical application, having been superseded by NTP. However, ICMP timestamps are not deprecated, suggesting that while hosts must support them, little attention is paid to their implementation and use. In this work, we perform active measurements and find 2.2 million hosts on the Internet responding to ICMP timestamp requests from over 42,500 unique autonomous systems. We develop a methodology to classify timestamp responses, and find 13 distinct classes of behavior. Not only do these behaviors enable a new fingerprinting vector, some behaviors leak important information about the host e.g., OS, kernel version, and local timezone.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1903.08294