RE: Port scanning legal

[Roeland Meyer <rmeyer () mhsc com>]

ping!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Shawn McMahon [mailto:smcmahon () eiv com]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 10:58 AM
> To: nanog () merit edu
> Subject: Re: Port scanning legal
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 11:59:23AM -0500, John Fraizer wrote:
> > Had he likened portscanning someones network to walking 
> into their back
> > yard with a ladder, climbing up to the second floor and 
> checking for open
> > windows, perhaps the court would have found differently.
>
> I'm sure they would, but it's a deeply flawed analogy.
>
> How many ports must be scanned before you deem it an attack?  
> Is one port
> enough?  Five?  50?
>
> If you pick a number here, is that arbitrary, or do you have a valid
> logical (and legally-supportable) reason for the number?
>
> If one port is sufficient, then the act of typing an IP address into a
> web browser to see if there's a web server listening is a crime.