[37757] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Stealth Blocking
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Schwartz)
Wed May 23 21:38:35 2001
From: "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com>
To: "Roeland Meyer" <rmeyer@mhsc.com>
Cc: <nanog@merit.edu>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 16:54:29 -0700
Message-ID: <NCBBLIEPOCNJOAEKBEAKAEAHPEAA.davids@webmaster.com>
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> In the PURE war, one ONLY shoots confirmed bad-guys and has ZERO
> collateral damage.
So if someone has a machine gun and is firing randomly, you don't act to
stop him until he happens to hit someone? That's madness. I don't advocate
random scanning, as it is unethical to probe random people for
vulnerability. However, once you know there is in fact an open relay, you
are entirely justified in blocking it. And if you have legitimate reason to
suspect a site is an open relay, you are entirely justified in probing it to
see whether or not it is.
If your neighbor is aiming a gun at you, you are justified in checking to
see if it's loaded. But if the gun is in his safe, you are not justified in
breaking in to check it.
DS
