--- title: "Why does SSH send 100 packets per keystroke? · eieio.games" url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-does-ssh-send-100-packets-per-keystroke-eieio-games-tpfw82a3y source_url: https://eieio.games/blog/ssh-sends-100-packets-per-keystroke type: article source: "eieio.games" published: 2026-03-31T12:29:36.819Z updated: 2026-03-31T12:53:47.426Z tags: ["golang", "ssh"] reading_time: 9 upvotes: 0 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why does SSH send 100 packets per keystroke? · eieio.games **[eieio.games](https://daily.dev/sources/eieio-games)** · 9 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer building a high-performance SSH-based multiplayer game discovered that OpenSSH sends ~100 chaff packets per keystroke due to keystroke timing obfuscation (added in 2023). This feature sends SSH2_MSG_PING messages to servers advertising the ping@openssh.com extension, obscuring typing patterns from network observers. While valuable for privacy, it caused 66% of all packets to be overhead, doubling CPU usage and bandwidth. The fix was forking Go's x/crypto library to remove the ping@openssh.com extension advertisement, cutting total CPU from 29.9% to 11.6%, syscall time by 79%, crypto overhead by 93%, and bandwidth in half. The post also reflects on using Claude Code for network packet analysis. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why does SSH send 100 packets per keystroke? · eieio.games](https://daily.dev/posts/why-does-ssh-send-100-packets-per-keystroke-eieio-games-39cja7qnp) · Hacker News · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [snakes.run: rendering 100M pixels a second over ssh · eieio.games](https://daily.dev/posts/snakes-run-rendering-100m-pixels-a-second-over-ssh-eieio-games-wcmuy5nco) · Lobsters · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [HPN-SSH UPDATED 2021](https://daily.dev/posts/hpn-ssh-updated-2021-kckfaemrq) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#golang](https://daily.dev/tags/golang), [#ssh](https://daily.dev/tags/ssh) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-does-ssh-send-100-packets-per-keystroke-eieio-games-tpfw82a3y)