RE: Port scanning legal

[Dan Hollis <goemon () sasami anime net>]

On Tue, 19 Dec 2000, Roeland Meyer wrote:
> I've pinged IP addrs that I later found out were MIL addrs. Nothing
> happened. Duh!

Cool. Care to portscan a couple .mil /16's and get back to me?

> There are a LOT of IP addrs that aren't in the DNS. How is one to know?

Hmm. whois perhaps?

connecting to whois.arin.net [192.149.252.21:43] ...
HQ 7th Signal Command (NETBLK-ARMY-C) NETBLK-ARMY-C198.49.183.0 - 198.49.192.0
INFORMATION SYSTEMS COMMAND (NET-NSMCNET) NSMCNET198.49.185.0 - 198.49.185.255

Naah, that makes too much sense. Can't have that now can we.

> I don't know about you, but I flunked telepathy in High School and did
> worse in clarvoyance.

One might argue its not the only thing you flunked.

> Could it be, that is why ping and traceroute were invented?

ping and traceroute are a far cry from nmap. I dont recall ping and
traceroute having a 'decoy host' option, or 'stealth' option for example,
nor any option to scan entire nets and ranges of ports.

> The argument against port-scanning applies equally well to just about every
> diagnostic tool we use.

Only by the most convoluted thinking.

-Dan