Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

> > er... cos i dont want you getting in trouble.. -please- ask before
> > scanning a system that doesnt belong to you... portscans are rather
> > frowned upon... most admins will see one and think an attack is not
> > too far behind... think of it as surveying the battlefeild before
> > starting the fight...
>
> Yep, but when you're scanning your own machines, you're admin of
> yourself, so you don't have to worry about any trouble caused by port
> scanning.
>
> > > nmap -v -A 127.0.0.1 said all 1663 ports are closed.
> > > How should I use nmap to check if my computer is vulnerable while online?
>
> If you want a better scanner that doesn't require javascript (maybe it
> will work even with lynx/links):
>
> http://www.hq42.net/net_tools/index.php

This site used nmap 3.0 to probe my local IP number (which is also at the 
end of a file /var/*/pppd.tbd as IPLOCAL) but appears to have checked out 
all the ports at my ISP.  There was mention of the closest large city. 
758 are closed and it listed the others starting with systat and netstat.

I could not interpret the results.

The other tests were for scanning various servers.

Should I be resetting mtu and mru to 1500 instead of about 500? Would this 
help my 56K external modem to connect at better than 42000 or 38000? I 
found these numbers while looking for IPLOCAL.  Hard to do email and 
listen to streaming 20K audio this way.

Opera 8.52 with BL2 checked out at bcheck.scanit.be (which only checks 
javascript browsers, using javascript) as having 0 vulnerabilities.

This discussion reminds me of being told to never wear a used bike helmet 
because it might have microscopic cracks.  We have the old Bell style, 
with a thick heavy white plastic shell instead of a decorative colored 
nylon or thin plastic layer, that would hold the styrofoam together even 
if it did crack.  It might not be possible to crack BL if you don't remove 
the plastic coating of not running servers other than X.