Subj : Re: Handy list of TCP ports?
To   : Brian Hall
From : Geo.
Date : Sun Mar 25 2001 01:47 pm

From: "Geo." <georger@nls.net>

Scans are the equivalent of looking at someone in public. Unless they are so 
intense that they are creating a flood condition I don't see the problem. Just 
because someone walks down the street and looks at all the cars doesn't mean 
they are a car thief. When I find an IP in my logs that poked me the first 
thing I do is scan it to see what it is, that's how you do things on the net, 
it's like looking at someone who waved at you.

And there is a flipside to this as well, when people pay for an internet 
connection, they expect to get a clean connection where they don't have to 
worry about the ISP being the cause of something they are trying to do not 
working. This is one of the reasons we put nothing between customers and the 
net.

My own personal view is if you don't want to see porn then put up a porn 
filter, if you don't want to be scanned then put up a firewall. It's your 
machine it's your responsibility. If it's my machine, mail, news, or web 
server, then I'll deal with the problem. I don't think this is an unreasonable 
position to take. It's expensive to provide security, it's also risky in that 
if you claim to provide it (which you would have to do to distinguish yourself 
from the folks who don't) and then it fails for some reason that would make you 
liable. Too high risk for a $14.95/month service.

Geo.

"Brian Hall" <bdhall1313@spamcop.net> wrote in message 
news:3abe97c2@w3.nls.net...
> Geo. wrote:
>
> > When the scans originate in some third world country, exactly what
> > would you have me do about it?
>
> I think he means something like an automatic firewall that detects
> scans of multiple addresses / multiple ports and drops the packets
> before they can get to the users machines (which aren't likely to be
> hardened against attacks). Also add the offending IP address to the
> block list.
>
> Better yet, when a scan is detected, mirror it back at the scanner.
>
> Brian

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