Re: Scanning the Internet for Vulnerabilities

[Mel Beckman <mel () beckman org>]

Carsten,

No, it’s more like 50,000 furnace guys who show up several times a day to rattle doorknobs, attempt to push slim Jim’s 
into window latches, hack your garage door opener, sneak into your back garden, and fly drones around your home to see 
what valuables you might have. Yes, some of them are altruistic, but some are self-righteous officious boobs, and the 
vast majority are career criminals that will rob your house, drain your retirement account, and kill your family with a 
spoofed SWAT raid.

 -mel beckman

> On Jun 20, 2022, at 4:20 AM, Carsten Bormann <cabo () tzi org> wrote:
> On 2022-06-20, at 04:18, Mel Beckman <mel () beckman org> wrote:
> > When researchers, or whoever, claim their scanning an altruistic service, I ask them if they would mind someone 
> > coming to their home and trying to open all the doors and windows every night.
>
> Well, it is more like the guy who comes once a year and checks that your central heating is not going to blow up.  
>
> (Disclaimer: I have supervised students who designed and executed benign mass-scans of the IPv4 Internet in order to 
> validate hypotheses about market penetration of certain security updates, and I definitely would do that again if 
> there is a good reason to perform such a scan.)
>
> Grüße, Carsten