[e2e] probing and laws (where can i find an ip or host address list?)

[Marc Herbert]

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004, RJ Atkinson wrote:

> >> 	You need to get advance permission from the legitimate
> >> owner/operator of any host you might probe.  To run a probe of
> >> someone else's system without specific advance permission could
> >> violate the law and is certainly anti-social behaviour.
> >
> >   IANAL, but court decisions in the US have generally said that
> > pinging hosts isn't against the law.  Lots of research projects do
> > this all of the time.  They often generate complaints, however,
> > and it's best to take several steps to avoid stepping on people's
> > toes.  I'll send out the list I've compiled once I find it - totally
> > hosed with the NSDI deadline right now.

> There are court cases contrary to what you say, both in the US and
> overseas. Moreover, the correspondent is in China, not the US.
> Chinese law is quite unrelated to any US legal precedents that might
> exist in some US jurisdictions.


I find this discussion a bit unreal considering the amount of probes
due to viruses (or whatever) I (we) receive per minute on my DSL line.
Add to that the few hundreds spam messages received per day...

I don't really have an opinion about probes and I will respect any
"law" about it. But I tend to find a bit weird, funny and ultimately
irrelevant any regulation massively ignored, violated and impossible
to enforce in reality.

I don't really see the point of having a "social behaviour" today when
I have a look at the log of any DSL line. I think we will be dead
before most zombie-PCs or their owners (who usually have a much more
interesting real life than applying security patches) adopt a "social
behaviour".  Hopefully some enforcement _technique_ (and not only some
hand-waving law) will help solve this issue much before that.

Just for fun, Imagine a state with laws but without any police or
justice... I am exaggerating of course (I won't deny court cases about
probing do exist). But just a bit (compare numbers of cases and
numbers of probes).

At first I thought this rant (longer than initially planned) was
off-topic. But finally I think it fits in some "end to end" topic not
so badly.



-- 
"Je n'ai fait cette lettre-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu
le loisir de la faire plus courte." -- Blaise Pascal