Echo service

[clusterm2]

I was going to bid on a service manual (CD's) for my car on Ebay however I noticed a neutral comment in the sellers feedback. I contacted this chap who told me the cd's were useless unless you have an 'echo service'...What is it?

 

[Anathema]

With respect to computer networking, "echo service" is the function that responds to ping requests. In the long-ago past, all TCP/IP systems would respond to ping requests by default --- but in this age of computer network attacks, the service is often disabled or blocked by a firewall.

It would seem strange, but perhaps this CD is using some kind of a local loopback network function that requires echo service in order to run. If so, it's a poorly-designed implementation. That doesn't mean it won't run on your system --- there would have to be some kind of tweak you could use to get it working, if the "echo service" problem is as I'm guessing it may be.

 

[clusterm2]

The actual wording in the reply was as follows

'the problem i have with the cd is you have to be conected to an echo service for it to down load, otherwise its useless '


I'm wondering if it means you require access to a (in my case) BMW network used by franchised dealers?

 

[Anathema]

Hmmm. That may be an authorization scheme, to ensure only licensed dealers use the software. Perhaps you need to contact a validation server, and issue a proper reply to activate the manual (really, just guessing here). If that is the case, there wouldn't seem to be any way to make use of it, and it would be likely that even the sale of it is illegal.

The old maxim applies here, with respect to internet transactions: "When in doubt, don't"