[PLUG] Re: nmap, curiosity, and courtesy (2)

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Fri, Sep 17, 2004 at 07:34:48AM -0700, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
 ... ssh probes ...
 
> I can run nmap against the offending machines, and find out more about
> them, but this seems impolite (Mom said "two wrongs do not make a
> right"),  and possibly a source of trouble.  What are the opinions here?

I got two replies saying "hack them and shut them down", which is
illegal.  Please be careful, there are people in jail right now
who suggested (even in jest) illegal acts on a mailing list, and
a friend is about to be extradicted from Canada for that.  My
question was about running nmap and investigating the offending
sites, without penetrating them - does that break any laws, here
or elsewhere, or cause other bad results - not about going Rambo.  

I am not concerned about oughtas, but real experiences.  I don't need
my Comcast feed shut down because my own activities look like system
cracking to their traffic analysis.   When I nmap my own site from
another, for example, I always inform relevant sysadmins so they
know what to expect.


> Also, assuming the offender and their ISP do not give a rip, is there
> any other organization that should be informed of the troublesome IP
> addresses?

I would still like a reply to this one.  I would think that some
organization with impressive letterheads and lawyers would be a
lot more likely to get attention from an ISP.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs