Is Port Scanning a crime? |
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| Author:
| dante00
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| Submitted: |
30-Jan-2002 16:23:48 |
| Imported From: |
zZine (original author: dante00)
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| "Scott Moulton, a network security consultant, was arrested and charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after he port scanned a network where he had a service contract to perform computer-related work for the a county 911 center"... And I ask you, is Port Scanning a crime?
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To people who are not familiar to this word, I can tell you that Port Scanning is a technique used to guess the services which a server is running.
How? Just connecting to every port and waiting to the answer of the server. If there's a good answer, that service is on, if not, it's off.
If this explanation doesn't ring you a bell, I encourage you to read d00m's great tutorial called "What are ports?" so you will be updated to this topic.
If connecting to a service is not illegal, why testing connections to more than one should be?
Let's set another point of view: If you connect to ftp and disconnect and after, I don't know, 5 minutes you connect to telnet on the same machine... is this a Port Scanning? Which is the difference between automated connections and manual ones?
As I see, maybe is the time it takes to switch between different ports, so, in my opinion there must be a part in this Computer Fraud and Abuse Act where this time must be specified.
What about our friend, the network security consultant? I really don't know why was exactly his job, but my opinion is that it's better to get in from inside than to let someone else from outside. By the way, Mr. Moulton is also accused of damaging systems, but the center of the polemic is why Port Scanning was one of the charges.
I would like to hear your comments. What are the facts that turn Port Scanning into an illegal act? I'm just curious... which time? which ports?
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