RE: Port scanning legal

[Roeland Meyer <rmeyer () mhsc com>]

I've pinged IP addrs that I later found out were MIL addrs. Nothing
happened. Duh!

There are a LOT of IP addrs that aren't in the DNS. How is one to know? I
don't know about you, but I flunked telepathy in High School and did worse
in clarvoyance. In fact, psionics wasn't wasn't something I was generally
good at. That's why I went into engineering.

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

The argument against port-scanning applies equally well to just about every
diagnostic tool we use. Be careful what you wish for, we might all get stuck
with it. Then, where would we be?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Hollis [mailto:goemon () sasami anime net]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 11:46 AM
> To: Shawn McMahon
> Cc: 'nanog () merit edu'
> Subject: Re: Port scanning legal
>
>
>
> On Tue, 19 Dec 2000, Shawn McMahon wrote:
> > Better lock me up; I can't count the number of times I've nmap-ed
> > somebody just to find out what OS they were using, either 
> for personal
> > curiosity, or as part of an argument.
>
> Cool. Since you're obviously in the right, how about scanning some
> U.S. military networks and letting us all know what OS they are using?
>
> If you like, I'll start an argument with you so you have the 
> justification
> you need to portscan.
>
> -Dan