Re: netscan.org update

[Patrick Greenwell <patrick () cybernothing org>]

On Sat, 23 Sep 2000, Troy Davis wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> netscan.org now has a list of the ASNs announcing the most smurf
> amplifiers, available at: http://netscan.org/most-active-asns.html
>
> It's not currently being dynamically generated, but it will be in the
> next few weeks, when we will probably increase it to show the top 1000
> and perhaps add more information (email address, number of amps, 
> average amplification, amps as a percentage of total class Cs being 
> announced).

Can someone explain to me why it is ok to blindly scan other peoples
networks without their permission for smurf amplifiers and post the
results, while doing the same for SMTP servers has met with heavy
criticism?

The question is *not* intended as a flame, I would just really like to
understand the reasoning that makes one apparently acceptable and the
other not.

Thanks.