"portscans" (was Re: Arbor Networks DoS defense product)

Sun May 19 01:43:16 UTC 2002

Scott Francis <darkuncle at darkuncle.net> writes:

[...]

> And why, pray tell, would some unknown and unaffiliated person be scanning my
> network to gather information or run recon if they were not planning on
> attacking? I'm not saying that you're not right, I'm just saying that so far
> I have heard no valid non-attack reasons for portscans (other than those run
> by network admins against their own networks).

Before choosing an onling bank, I portscanned the networks of the
banks I was considering.  It was the only way I could find to get a
rough assessment of their network security, which was important to me
as a customer for obvious reasons.

I'm not sure if I would have been impressed or annoyed if they had
stopped accepting packets from my machine during the scan.  :-)

-----ScottG.