Steve Kostecke <[email protected]> writes: >On 2008-12-31, Unruh <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 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. >The ntp survey consists of an ntpdate poll and a few status queries of >publically accessible servers. >If these polls and queries are considered a criminal "port scan" then >many NTP users are guilty of an actionable offense. Yes, that is the problem with laws against port scanning. Since lawmakers and their staff are in general technical ignormuses, laws will tend sweep up a lot of what would be considered acceptable behaviour into its dustbin. An ntp survey probes a port on a vast number of machines at one time. That is also what nefarious port scanners do. I have read numerous posts where people have come out strongly against such activity, comparing it to someone walking down the road and going to the doors of houses and trying each door to see if they are unlocked, and advocating that this should be criminalised ( and remember a criminal offense needs no complainant-- it is entirely up to the state to decide whether or not to prosecute. ) Canada has gotten around this by making it a criminal offense to operate a computer (Mischief to Data makes it a crime-- 10 year and $1000000 - to alter any data on a computer. And the law has no "colour or right" exemption.) Since such an ntp survey certainly alters data on a Canadian computer (time stamps, temporary variables), it is guilty of a criminal offense. Would any Canadian prosecutor make the case? I doubt it, but they could. Maybe the courts would be smart ( apparently one case where someone was prosecuted for altering data on his own computer was thrown out by the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia), but may be they would not (Brazillians doing it, they must be terrorists!). I am not arguing that the ntp survey should not be done, or is a bad thing. I am arguing that it is an example of a good thing which could fall afoul of bad laws. _______________________________________________ questions mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ntp.org/mailman/listinfo/questions
