Anti-Censorship Efforts And Port Scanning

scubacuda writes "According to Wired, the University of Toronto's Internet Censorship Explorer permits people test the limits of national and organizational Internet-blocking schemes. Users enter a target URL (and a country), and the software then scans the ports of available servers in that country, looking for open ones to connect on from behind that country's firewall. Many consider port scanning a gray area, as it's often used by various hackers to find vulnerabilies that can be exploited."

Comments

Port scanning is not a grey area...

[xchino]

There is nothing wrong with scanning ports and seeing what services a particular server offers to the general public. It's not like it's circumventing any security measures, it's just using TCP/IP in a manner it was meant to be used in. This is like saying that p2p filesharing clients are in a gray market. There's nothing wrong with a p2p filesharing program, the problem lies with those that abuse it.

Tool

[gmuslera]

Knifes are a gray area too, because is used by killers to stab people. But also they are used by surgeons, to save lives, and for everyone else to eat, cut things and so on... so, they must be forbidden or not?

Anyway, I think that the main use of port scanning today, in internet (to contrast with internal lans, where it have some useful applications, from security audits to automatic configuration of things), is to find vulnerabilities, and even for lawful tries, is recomended to ask permision or be with the knowledge of the the remote administrator. If the ICE don't ask permission to the remote administrator for the scanning, well, I think that the "gray" area is actually pretty dark.

Re:Tool

[unicron]

That's a bad analogy. A better one is to say port scanning is like walking through a neighborhood trying doorknobs looking for an unlocked one.

Man the barricades

[1984]

People get too excited about port scanning. They also get exciting about network mapping that looks like port scanning (try tracerouting a lot of hosts).

Your ports will get scanned. Get over it. If it upsets you, look for ways to dump the traffic. Yes, it is an oft-used reconnaisance technique for profiling systems prior to attack. But if a portscan allows an attacker to mount a successful attack on the basis of finding open ports or a vulnerable OS, then your security is inadequate. It's your problem.

No, I don't think portscanning is "nice", but really, folks, it isn't going to go away, and you should be thinking more realistically about the defensive measures necessary to protect your systems.

Grey Area?

[Daetrin]

Many consider port scanning a gray area, as it's often used by various hackers to find vulnerabilies that can be exploited.

This sounds like the claims made by the RIAA and MPAA and others when they got the DMCA created. "Some of it could be used by some people to do something illegal, therefore we should make it all illegal." Clearly, as this program itself demonstrates, there are legitimate uses for port scanning, so i fail to see why the technique itself should be considred a "grey area."

Doesn't scan ports...

[Neutron Zenith]

According to their website:

NOTE: This wired article is not exactly accurate.

1. The ICE browser does not port scan anyone, it issues a request for a URL to a proxy server and returns the results to the user. There is no scanning of any kind.

The process of scanning occurs when open, publicly accessible proxies are identified by researchers in the Citizen Lab. The only ports checked are 80, 8080, and 3128, no others.

In many cases proxies are identified based on the fact that they are listed on websites that catalog lists of open, publicly accessible proxy servers. In such cases NO scanning is done.

You can read the rest here.

Where I work...

[natet]

Port scanning without authorization (and not just from the owner of the box) is grounds for termination. Only certain people who have completed special training are allowed to scan a box, even one not on site.