Alexander Cherepanov wrote:
The thing is the port numbers list is NOT an exclusivity list... other people & systems may use these ports if they wish.Hello, Scott! You wrote to or-talk@xxxxxxxx, scream@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:15:43 -0500 (CDT):Now, another person on this list has argued that the RFC's should be ignored and that IANA should be ignored. I remain unconvinced that doing either would be a good idea.The main discord here seems to arise from totally different approaches to the question. You are building a whitelist while default tor exit policy is a blacklist. IMHO it's hard to constructively discuss amending blacklist from whitelist POV.Having a set of standard port numbers at which one may expect to access standard services is valuable,Sure it is valuable but AFAIU tor is not there to bring order back to Internet.
Its a misconception that these ports were exclusively assigned to the stated systems. Its only true that if you run/design these systems then you are asked (not required) to design using them (and only them).
The idea was to make it easier to open certain ports in corporate firewalls for common services.
There is no form of enforcement of ANY sort, either of.. ports ONLY for certain services or services ONLY on certain ports.Of course, websites & organizations have the right to choose which ports they use for which services and open/close. Anyone trying to inflict that kind of system on any "internet" user community should STOP doing so immediately. Its called "port blocking" and its unacceptable.
Therefore ALL traffic, on ALL ports, are LEGITIMATE traffic, regardless of whether they comply with IANA's list or not.
My understanding was that Tor allows node operators to best configure their node to make the most of their particular resources (eg to get round fascist firewalls etc), as opposed to blocking ports because of arbitrary ideas of what services might/might not be used on them.
Of course, fascist firewalls are commonly the reason why a Tor user would set up communication over (more often not open) ports, like port 43, as it will not be blocked. And so, petty administrators are employed to reduce this supposed "unauthorized" traffic (tut tut) to a minimum.
I suppose some of these bureaucrats will use the IANA list as evidence of malpractice.
Alexander CherepanovP.S. There is neither X-Mailer nor User-Agent headers in your mails. That's cool but missing In-Reply-To and References is annoying. Do you use some email sanitizing software or just hardened MUA? If it's not a secret of course:-)