"Richard B. Gilbert" <[email protected]> writes:

>Unruh wrote:
>> Tim Shoppa <[email protected]> writes:
>> 
>>> On Dec 30, 12:32=A0pm, Unruh <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> "Richard B. Gilbert" <[email protected]> writes:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Tim Shoppa wrote:
>>>>>> On Dec 29, 10:47 pm, [email protected] (Danny Mayer) wrote:
>>>>>>> Antonio,
>>>>>>> If you are really from nic.br please use your email address from that
>>>>>>> domain. It is unacceptable to use a gmail account for such notificati=
>>> ons.
>>>>>>> Danny
>>>>>> This is usenet, where anyone can set their "from" address to anything
>>>>>> they want, and posting with an E-mail address that is adequately spam-
>>>>>> filtered makes perfect sense.
>>>>>> I'm not sure there's any real requirement that anyone has to announce
>>>>>> any particular e-mail address to run a NTP survey. He made the
>>>>>> methodology clear, said where the queries will be coming from, and I
>>>>>> think it's good that surveys continue and, like Antonio and his
>>>>>> collaborators do, they make the details and results public.
>>>>>> Tim.
>>>>> There is no requirement that he even announce his survey! =A0It is polit=
>>> e
>>>>> for him to do so but no more than that.
>>>> Well, Under various laws he may be guilty of hacking/cracking/illegal use
>>>> fo computer time/... unless he gets permission. There has at least been a
>>>> strong feeling by many expressed that access does not imply permission. I=
>>> e,
>>>> just because the ntp port is open does not mean that anyone has permissio=
>>> n
>>>> to use that port (eg is port scanning legal?). It is of course a complete=
>>> legal can of worms.
>>>> But announcing the survey here might be useable as a partial defense =A0i=
>>> f
>>>> the worms wriggled out of the can.
>> 
>>> Bill -
>>>  NTP surveys are good things. NTP Surveys that publish their results
>>> are even better. A NTP client is a server. Port scanning is bad.
>> 
>> I do not dispute that and I suspect that any court would take that position
>> as well. I am hypothesising that one of the reasons they announced the
>> survey was as one more brick in a possible defence against some prosecutor
>> in some jurisdiction accussing them of hacking.
>> 
>> There have been interminable arguments as to whether or not port scanning
>> should be criminalised. That would almost certainly extend to this kind of
>> survey. I think it would be a very bad idea to criminalise port scanning,
>> but many people think otherwise. 
>> 

>Port scanning, very occasionally, has legitimate purposes.  I once used 
>a port scanning program to find out what port(s) a copier/printer used. 
>  It did not use the standard port that I expected but the port scan 
>told me what I wanted to know.

>Now port scanning something that is not yours, if not criminal, is 
>certainly extremely bad manners and suggests that you have nefarious 
>intentions.  It  goes on all the time!  I have a router/firewall that 

Well, the ntp survey is a "port scan " (one port, but getting no trivial
information from it). Any law would have a hard time differentiating
between the "port scanning that is not yours" and the ntp survey.

>blocks all incoming traffic unless the connection was initiated from 
>inside the firewall.  I occasional look at the logs just for grins.
>Somebody is banging on that box every ten seconds or so, twenty-four and 
>  seven!  Not all the people banging on that box are running port scans, 
>of course, most of them seem to be trying ports 1028 and 1029; I think 
>they may have something to do with instant messaging.

>My external address is assigned by DHCP and has changed many times over 
>the years.  I have no idea what it is at the moment and don't really 
>care.  It enables the machines I want to talk to to reply to me.  If I 
>really wanted to get into my network from outside, I could configure the 
>router to allow it but I have never done so and doubt that I ever will!

_______________________________________________
questions mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.ntp.org/mailman/listinfo/questions

Reply via email to