December 19, 2025
Ping to save, pray to load
Pingfs: Stores your data in ICMP ping packets
Yes, your files hitchhike on pings — half genius, half chaos
TLDR: Pingfs turns server pings into a quirky “cloud” by hiding files inside the tiny packets that bounce back. Commenters split between delight (Tom7 vibes, retro nostalgia) and doubt, debating practicality, etiquette, and whether this is brilliant art or beautiful chaos.
The internet just got weird: “pingfs” promises True Cloud Storage by stuffing your files into the tiny “ping” replies servers send back. ICMP (the thing behind ping) is basically a network check—now it’s being turned into a suitcase for your data. The dev admits it’s Linux-only, needs superuser powers, drops data easily, and can’t even make folders, but the crowd came for the spectacle. Some are calling it performance art, others are screaming “please don’t use the internet as a hard drive.”
Fans immediately linked Tom7’s “Harder Drive”, the cult classic where he stuffs data everywhere—from ping packets to Tetris—to crown this project as the kind of nerd whimsy we live for. Retro romantics swooned: one commenter marveled that a ZX Spectrum’s memory could fit in a single IP packet, like loading your childhood from a single beep. Another called it a “software mercury delay line,” a throwback to vintage memory tech, while a security crowd cited Michal Zalewski’s legendary Silence on the Wire as proof this trick has deep roots.
The drama: Is this brilliant subversion or network mischief? The vibe is 50% art installation, 50% chaos lab. People laughed, cringed, and argued—then tried it anyway, just to see if they could ping their way to a file.
Key Points
- •Pingfs stores file data inside ICMP Echo (ping) packets sent to and from remote hosts.
- •It is implemented with raw sockets and FUSE, requires root privileges, and targets Linux only.
- •Both IPv4 and IPv6 remote hosts are supported; the program resolves and tests hosts before mounting.
- •Supported operations include creating/removing normal files, listing, renaming, reading/writing/truncating, and permission handling; directories, links, and timestamps are unsupported (timestamps always 0).
- •Performance is currently inadequate for LAN hosts and may cause data loss; the software is released under a permissive license with standard warranty disclaimers.