24 Jan
2023
24 Jan
'23
5:41 p.m.
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023, Falcon Darkstar Momot via 44net wrote:
As someone who uses censys scans a lot when doing
research, I'd be very
sad to see more networks blocking censys (or wasting effort blocking
port scans in general).
They ALL need to lift their game IMO.
Unless it's actually interfering in some way with
your operations,
That's not the point.
it is completely harmless
It is not "completely harmless".
and allows us to answer questions about what
kinds of things people are doing with the Internet.
And that's not enough justification.
I consider these scans to be "electronic tresspass".
I'm sure we all like having access to google maps to find things and
navigate.
I'm sure many of us like using streetview from time to time.
I'm also sure most of us here use these for legitimate, reasonable,
intended uses.
How about when a bunch of people turn up at your house with cameras,
mapping equipment, LIDAR, drones, thermal cameras and go traipsing through
your yard, poking in windows etc seeing "what stuff you've got"?
Oh, I'm sure it'd "useful" information - trying to work out what your
insurance premiums should be, or how wealthy your suburb is, or how good
your homes insulation is etc, but damn, it's more than a little bit rude
and obtrusive, utterly regardless of any "benefits" (real or perceived).
Scanners are the same. What gives them the right to probe every port and
every protocol for every IP address I've got? NONE, that's what.
And as to "does no harm" - I have lots of VERY low power microcontrollers
that have a need to be reached by arbitary devices "out there" on the
internet, but which have no capacity to be bombarded by dozens of packets
a second, much less the hundreds or thousands per second I've seen from
SOME scanners. And yes, it DOES do harm. These poor little things either
shut down, or run out of stored power, or stop responding to LEGITIMATE
requests because they're overwhelmed with unwanted and unauthorised
"hostile" traffic.
Perhaps not in YOUR pert of the world, but in lots of OTHER places, we
either pay per byte for data, or have limited data - and these thieves are
taking our resources WITHOUT our permission.
Sure, some of us have put firewalls etc in front of our networks to
protect them, but why should we HAVE to? And how about all those devices
on other peoples networks (particularly cellular networks) where it's not
possible or practical to do so?
No, I cannot agree that these constant scans are either harmless, OR
beneficial.
RossW