Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity

[Ansgar -59cobalt- Wiechers <bugtraq () planetcobalt net>]

On 2007-04-12 Daniel Miessler wrote:
> On Apr 12, 2007, at 2:34 AM, Craig Wright wrote:
> > Systems that ONLY drop packets stand out. They are not "stealthy" but
> > rather the hole they make makes them extrememly visible.
>
> Huh ?!?
>
> Kind of like the hole caused by systems that aren't online? LOL. So I  
> guess all those systems that don't exist are being put on a master  
> hacker list somewhere to be investigated later? Dude, you're  
> frightening me.

For non-existing hosts (e.g. hosts being offline) some router will
respond with a destination-unreachable message. Not receiving any kind
of response usually means the target *is* there and is dropping packets.
There ain't something like "stealth" in TCP/IP.

Regards
Ansgar Wiechers
-- 
"All vulnerabilities deserve a public fear period prior to patches
becoming available."
--Jason Coombs on Bugtraq