After a bit of research using a sniffer, i have found that ALL routed pongs (at least through Bearshare) have a messageID of: {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}. This does not seem to follow accepted procedure.

It is my understanding (correct me if i'm wrong) that when receiving a pong with a messageID that matches a previously seen ping, it is forwarded through the connection the ping was received (if not pongcaching).

If pongcaching Is being used, and the servant receives a ping, the servant dips into it's pongcache (if the cache is sufficently full) and INSERTS the message id of the RECEIVED ping (the receiving client never knows the difference, with exception of TTL & hops), and sends it back through the connection from which it came, this reducing traffic on the network.

I do understand there are variants of this scheme, but I have not seen any that stated you should insert a messageID of all zero's.

Is this normal practice? I mean, i guess theres nothing wrong with it. It make the identification of routed pongs a snap. but again, Is this normal practice? ie. do I need to incorporate this into my servant? It does not seem wise to hardcode something like this into pong handling routines.