Re: analysis of auditable port scanning techniques

[D. J. Bernstein]

Dan Harkless writes:
> Theo de Raadt just informed me via email that OpenBSD fixed their identd to
> only report SS_CONNECTOUT sockets in 1996.

The MTA and the FTP server and many other daemons will make outgoing TCP
connections upon request. This bogus ``fix'' does not achieve the stated
goal of keeping the daemon usernames secret. Meanwhile, it wipes out
useful logs for some portmap-style protocols. (Rare protocols, I agree.)

The correct approach is to encrypt the uid under a secret key. This has
been built into pidentd for years.

---Dan