tcp_syncookie question

[Genes MailLists]

On 06/01/2011 10:40 AM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 01, 2011 at 10:35:18 -0400,
>   Genes MailLists <lists at sapience.com> wrote:
>>
>>   Networking Gurus:
>>
>>   In the past I've set my firewall to use tcp_syncookies - but this
>> prevents certain tcp options - given the current state of the internet -
>> can someone opine on whether this should continue to be used or not?
> 
> The purpose of syn cookies is to not maintain state locally for partly
> opened connections. Doing so makes a denial of service attack very
> easy.

  Right - I understand its purpose and benefits - but networking (and
the speed and window sizes) have changed since 1996 ... my question is
if it is still good practice today to use it?