RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] network scanning?

["McNutt, Justin M." <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

> I'd be pissed for being picked up for either of those too. If 
> it was the
> middle of the night I could see being picked up for standing outside
> someones house to long maybe. If it's the middle of the night 
> and pouring
> rain then okay it might be weird but are you gonna stand 
> arresting kids
> who run in your yard after their dog or people that stop to 
> look at your
> flowers? I personally like to look at houses and often stop to look at
> houses and wonder about what kind of people live there. Might 
> be odd but
> is harmless. Same with port scanning. :)

Remember that the idea behind most laws is to protect people from extreme
abuses.  Examples in both the real and digital worlds:

Real world:  Somebody who stands across the street and watches your house
every day for a week, making everyone nervous and suspicious.

Digital world:  Somebody you don't know repeatedly scanning your network,
possibly degrading the performance of your systems.

Problem is, in both cases the law has *technically* made more harmless
activities illegal as well.  The law can be abused just as well as people
can abuse their ability to travel and/or use the network.

Secondly, a port scan is more intrusive than just stopping by a house and
looking at it.  If we remember that a port scan is essentially looking for
any and all open services offered by a machine, a real world analogy is more
like knocking on someone's door and asking who lives there and what s/he
does for a living (perhaps all the while eyeballing their home security).

Either one makes people nervous, and perhaps rightly so.  Also, in either
case, if you are unwanted, you are technically trespassing.

Now in the real world case, a person is probably much more justified in
bringing the law down upon you, since it is fairly easy for a person on your
doorstep to threaten you, your kids, your proprety, etc.

However, that doesn't mean that the law isn't on the "scannee's" side in the
digital case.  When you scan someone's system, you don't know ahead of time
what damage you're going to cause, not to mention the fact that it is in
fact considered - at best - rude and annoying.

People (well, jerks anyway) will retaliate using whatever means are
available to them.  Just keep in mind that they have legal means available,
justified or not.

--J
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