Re: scanning my ports

1999-09-26 Thread Mark W. Eichin
In addition to apologies to Mr. Norman, perhaps there's some value in
either (1) making tcplogd etc. require enough configuration to force
people to read the documentation, or (2) enhance those packages to
interpret things a little more, so they scare naive users a bit less?



Re: scanning my ports

1999-09-26 Thread Nathan E Norman
On 26 Sep 1999, Mark W. Eichin wrote:

 : In addition to apologies to Mr. Norman, perhaps there's some value in
 : either (1) making tcplogd etc. require enough configuration to force
 : people to read the documentation, or (2) enhance those packages to
 : interpret things a little more, so they scare naive users a bit less?

No apologies necessary.  The mirror services have been restored.

I apologise for the incendiery tone of my original email; I was pretty
upset.  Mr. Lapeyre and I have continued to correspond via private mail
and I feel we've got everything worked out.

An important point to consider in this particualr case:  The PTR record
for 24.220.0.13 resolves to pavlov.midco.net rather than
debian.midco.net which would certainly be more obvious in most cases.
Unfortunately, there are issues with changing the PTR record to a more
correct value, as the machine has other responsibilities.

My co-workers and I are plannig to purchase a new system board,
processor and case which along with some hardware donations ( :) ) will
become debian.midco.net, leaving pavlov to his more mundane tasks.
This should prove beneficial to both the project and Midcontinent. (If
anyone wants to contribute something, let me know.  I think we've got it
mostly covered.)

--
Nathan Norman
MidcoNet  410 South Phillips Avenue  Sioux Falls, SD
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://www.midco.net
finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP Key: (0xA33B86E9)




Re: scanning my ports

1999-09-26 Thread Jason Gunthorpe

On 26 Sep 1999, Mark W. Eichin wrote:

 In addition to apologies to Mr. Norman, perhaps there's some value in
 either (1) making tcplogd etc. require enough configuration to force
 people to read the documentation, or (2) enhance those packages to
 interpret things a little more, so they scare naive users a bit less?

debian-admin gets reports like this on virtually a monthly basis, they
response is always that the user is using port mode ftp and that the site
is an ftp server.

Some of the 'reports' are exeremely angry and irritated - I think the best
one was from some admin who had a user who subscribed to a Debian lists,
he was incessed that we were 'attacking' his mail server by *gasp* sending
it mail!

Jason



Re: scanning my ports

1999-09-25 Thread Nathan E Norman
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-

On Fri, 24 Sep 1999, John Lapeyre wrote:

 :  Dear Security Staff:
 :I received 2086 connection attempts at several ports on September 22.
 :  The attempts were made from  IP address  pavlov.midco.net [24.220.0.13]
 :  The machine whose ports were scanned is 128.196.189.45 .
 :  Please make sure that this port scanning does not happen again.
 :  
 : Here are the first and last connection attempts 
 : 
 : Sep 22 02:01:23 homey tcplogd: auth connection attempt from pavlov.midco.net 
[24.220.0.13]
 : Sep 22 21:20:18 homey tcplogd: port 24011 connection attempt from 
pavlov.midco.net [24.220.0.13]
 : 
 : Thanks for your cooperation.

Mr. Lapeyre,

You do realise that pavlov.midco.net is part of the DNS rotation
http.us.debian.org?

  [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~ $ host pavlov.midco.net
  pavlov.midco.netA   24.220.0.13
  ^^^
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~ $ host http.us.debian.org
  http.us.debian.org  A   206.187.92.15
  http.us.debian.org  A   207.69.194.216
  http.us.debian.org  A   209.249.97.234
  http.us.debian.org  A   141.213.4.21
  http.us.debian.org  A   24.220.0.13
  ^^^

I see no evidence in the logs that you are being port scanned - I feel
it's more likely that your use of the mirror here is at issue.  You may
of course disagree.

Nevertheless, I will shut down the mirror here and rebuild this machine
from scratch, implementing draconian and paranoid security measures.

If I receive further complaints of abuse from Debian project
participants, I will be forced to remove the mirror entirely.
Complaints to [EMAIL PROTECTED] are viewed by members of the
management team as well as members of the technical staff, and I regret
to inform you that one of the members of the management team has reacted
to your complaint in an abusive and non-productive manner that will
certainly impact our ability to help Debian in the future.

I regret the shoot the messenger tone of this email; understandably
security is important and potential abuses should be dealt with swiftly
and forcefully, given the state of the Internet today.  Nevertheless,
common sense can and should be exercised whenever possible.

I reiterate that today I remove pavlov.midco.net from the mirror
rotation http.us.debian.org.  HTTP, FTP, and RSYNC access to this
machine will be turned off upon completion of this email. The machine
will be shut down and rebuilt from scratch.  Mirror services *may* be
restored at that point, if I can convince management that the benefits
of hosting a mirror outweigh the liabilities.

Sincerely,

- --
Nathan Norman - Network Specialistmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
High Speed Internet Accesshttp://www.midco.net
finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP Key ID: (0xA33B86E9)

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: 2.6.3ia
Charset: noconv

iQCVAwUBN+0ovAXl8N+jO4bpAQGTmQP9Eyff8etuyzQkYx3kKry2QJTlpP5KGTj4
hiIkViV2d3T6rOJ1paeESYjMrzycNLBBdqSNMvmnBYMzSC3fY9ykdNBSC/wUEBfq
Q4oCG+OYOovDJDQXxurDj0/HgZzoIGPt8lx3ODDox34jris/hhu3qruE9RlHcT13
0sgwXKTBcp8=
=fgR7
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



Re: scanning my ports

1999-09-25 Thread John Lapeyre
*Nathan E Norman wrote:

 Mr. Lapeyre,
 
 You do realise that pavlov.midco.net is part of the DNS rotation
 http.us.debian.org?
  No, I didn't.  I was using the mirror. I am in  error.  Obviously
the connections to several ports on my machine were a legitmate part
of the transfer of data to my machine.  I made the accusations out
of ignorance.

 I see no evidence in the logs that you are being port scanned - I feel
 it's more likely that your use of the mirror here is at issue.  You may
 of course disagree.
  No, I agree.  The connection attempts in my log were made to transfer
data that I requested.
 
 Nevertheless, I will shut down the mirror here and rebuild this machine
 from scratch, implementing draconian and paranoid security measures.
   Please don't do this.  I don't see any need to do this.
 
 If I receive further complaints of abuse from Debian project
 participants, I will be forced to remove the mirror entirely.
 Complaints to [EMAIL PROTECTED] are viewed by members of the
 management team as well as members of the technical staff, and I regret
 to inform you that one of the members of the management team has reacted
 to your complaint in an abusive and non-productive manner that will
 certainly impact our ability to help Debian in the future.

  I feel  sorry for this person. 

 
 I regret the shoot the messenger tone of this email; understandably
 security is important and potential abuses should be dealt with swiftly
 and forcefully, given the state of the Internet today.  Nevertheless,
 common sense can and should be exercised whenever possible.
  I made a mistake, and made a false accusation.  I am very sorry to
have wasted the time of your security team.   Maybe you can avoid further
waste of time, by accepting my retraction of accusations and realizing that
now there is no evidence and no accusation of a security problem, and
therefore, no reason to take action on a suspected security problem

   I apologize to the project for throwing a wrench in the mirroring
system.

-- 
John Lapeyre [EMAIL PROTECTED],  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tucson,AZ http://www.physics.arizona.edu/~lapeyre

pgp2l3B2xdxlN.pgp
Description: PGP signature