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Security

Nmap 4.00 Released 43

NoExec writes "Hot off the nmap-hackers list comes news that the Nmap Security Scanner version 4.00 has been released. Dozens of major changes since 3.50 (2 years ago) are listed in the announcement. These include a rewritten (for speed and memory efficiency) port scanning engine, ARP scanning, a brand new man page and install guide, 'l33t ASCII art, runtime interaction, massive version detection improvements, MAC address spoofing, increased Windows performance, 500 new OS detection fingerprints, completion time estimates, and much more."
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Nmap 4.00 Released

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  • It's not fair to Fyodr! You slashdotted him, you insensitive clods!
  • Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)

    by daeley ( 126313 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @02:28PM (#14609496) Homepage
    I wonder if Trinity has had a chance to try it out [seclists.org]. ;)
  • gtk2 front end (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Glad they finally ditched gtk1
  • "This is particularly useful for Windows, since Microsoft has disabled raw socket support in XP."

    Does it mean that the lowest level you can use is TCP or UDP? How did nmap work in Windows before? (Did it?)

    I wonder what's the logic in disabling raw sockets...
    • by CerebusUS ( 21051 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @02:43PM (#14609698)
      Here's Steve Gibson's reasons [grc.com] for a start.
      • Steve Gibson is a total bonehead [grcsucks.com]. His latest moronic idea was debunked on /. [slashdot.org] just a few days ago.
        • Ad hominem. Just because one idea was debunked doesn't necessarily mean that all of Gibson's theories are dead wrong.
          • No but it would lend support to the statement that he's a moron and should make you take other things that he has said on similar subjects with a grain of salt.

            Calling into question ones expertise and intelligence regarding a subject when talking about their positions on similar subjects is not strictly an ad hominum attack because their abilities are at the core of their ability to even create their argument. For instance, I know nothing about cars beyond how to drive one. One day I start spouting out som
            • by Geoffreyerffoeg ( 729040 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @08:50AM (#14615029)
              Saying 'but he knows nothing about cars,' is not an ad hominum attack because my abilities, knowledge and experience are directly related to my ability to make a correct argument on this subject.

              Correct.

              No but it would lend support to the statement that he's a moron

              Incorrect, non sequitur, and evidence of not understanding "ad hominem". Unless you're stating that he has that particular 10-point IQ range designated "moron", that fell out of use ages ago, calling him a moron is a personal attack. What if he's being paid off by an underling of Stallman to make as much noise as possible about Windows vulnerabilities - and since Windows is so vulnerable, he's generally right? What if he's just misguided but using useful sources? What if he jumped the shark some time back?

              If you can lend any support to the theory "Gibson is unqualified to offer opinions on Windows security," you'd have a leg. If you can simply prove "Raw sockets do not affect the attack level of the Internet," your case would be done, and you would be attacking the argument, not the person. Why risk making an unrelated ad hominem that could be a fallacy, if it's far easier, and more relevant to the Slashdot discussion at large, to prove the original statement?

              Here, to bring this on topic, refute these claims about raw sockets.
              • Raw sockets have no use in a workstation OS. If XP Home is coming without a webserver, a remote desktop, and so forth, then why does it need something as obscure as raw sockets?
              • If you need to build a specific interface that isn't, e.g., TCP/IP, then write a driver for the protocol, and either digitally sign it or let the user accept the unsigned driver.
              • If we need to allow application-level raw sockets, then only let it run as administrator. Kinda like UNIX only lets root run servers on the first 1024 ports.
              • Raw sockets are easily used by botnets to spoof their source address in a DDOS. Botnets exist.
              • The average user never needs raw sockets. (Nmap is not a tool for the average user.)

              Therefore, just like everything else they've been recently disabling in the name of security, raw sockets have ample justification not to be there.
              • Your arguments are simply undone by the rule that security through obscurity is not security at all. It hasn't worked for Microsoft and it won't work this way either.

                Your rationale is that the average user has no need and is in actuality a compromised machine owner waiting to happen for a botnet. Hence the old the users are too stupid so lets remove the ticking timebomb before they set it off argument.

                This reduces the OS more and more towards being nothing more than a toy and shackles anyone and everyone us
                • creating a cutsey neutered Paris Hilton froo-froo lap dog OS

                  I won't even begin to list the fallacies in that, but since we're back on topic...isn't that what Windows (or at least Windows XP Home) is? If you want to do cool things with it, get XP Pro. If you want to do really cool things, get Windows Server 2003. If you want to do extremely cool things and avoid the Windows paradigm, get Linux.

                  Paris Hilton needs an OS, and Microsoft has written it. Anyone who needs raw sockets on a regular basis should not a
    • by slavemowgli ( 585321 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @02:51PM (#14609804) Homepage

      I wonder what's the logic in disabling raw sockets...

      Oh! Can't you see? It's all done to protect you from the evil intarweb hackers!

      That being said, the lowest level you can use now is raw ethernet frames, and that's just what nmap does - in other words, the disabling of raw sockets is completely useless...

    • by jd ( 1658 ) <`imipak' `at' `yahoo.com'> on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @02:57PM (#14609889) Homepage Journal
      This is part of a conspiracy by fast food places. If you can't get raw packets, only grilled ones, you're going to be more inclined to get fries with that.
    • It uses WinPcap to send raw ethernet frames (assuming ethernet network)
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Fyodor's version [seclists.org]
    • How did nmap work in Windows before? (Did it?)
      Under XP SP2, it didn't, even with firewall disabled.*
      with nmap4 it does.

      (* in reply to later comment about disabling windows firewall)
    • by archeopterix ( 594938 ) * on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @06:10AM (#14614621) Journal
      I wonder what's the logic in disabling raw sockets...
      Stupidity + historical reasons, which I am recalling from memory:

      1. Microsoft implements raw sockets, with some efforts to restrict access to them - only Administrators can use them.
      2. On XP all users are Administrators by default.
      3. Some people point this out, the stupidest being the loudest [grc.com]. ("Full Raw Sockets were created as a potent research tool. They were NEVER INTENDED to be shipped in a mass-market consumer operating system." )
      4. Microsoft thinks it's a good idea.

  • I was just thinking the other day the nmap really lacks l33t ascii art. Looking forward to those speed enhancements though.
    • Gaaah! (Score:3, Funny)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      It's spelled 1337! Gah, typists these days. In my day, typists had only one key! And that was backspace! AND they were grateful for it.
      • Re:Gaaah! (Score:5, Funny)

        by menkhaura ( 103150 ) <espinafre@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @04:30PM (#14610750) Homepage Journal
        You, boy, should be grateful for your backspace key. When I was a lad there were no such things as keys; we used our very own fingers to close the 12000V contacts. Our programs were entered in binary, and we were lucky when we did it all right the first time, for so Dad wouldn't bang our heads with a baseball bat. Furthermore, in order to get 12000V (lower tensions didn't pass through our fingers) on the patch-panel contacts, we had to bring in our own 300lb transformers. On our backs. Uphill both ways.
        • Oh yea? At least you had it that good. Where I had to walk, there was snow! Don't get me started about not having clothes, either, or shoes......
          • Re:Gaaah! (Score:2, Funny)

            by NuclearDog ( 775495 )
            Yeah, well when I was your age, I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when I got home, my Dad would kill me, and dance about on my grave singing "Hallelujah."
  • Nmap is my favourite video game ever.

    It's a shame my ISP explicitly bans all portscanning in the TOS. Oh yeah, and looking at naughty pictures too, so you can imagine how seriously I take the TOS.
    • Re:Hoooooray! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by DrSkwid ( 118965 )
      Can you post a link to the TOS, I'm interested as to how they word that idiotic clause.

      "All portscanning", even, say, the range 80-80 ?

  • by yesnoyes ( 951021 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @03:04PM (#14609963)
    SecurityFocus just posted an excellent interview with Fyodor [securityfocus.com] about the 4.00 release. Topics include speed benchmarks, version detection improvement details, the upcoming new OS detection system, and reactions to Nessus going proprietary.
  • by yesnoyes ( 951021 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @03:42PM (#14610347)
    My favorite part of the release announcement [insecure.org] actually relates to Nessus:

    A popular open source security scanner recently went proprietary, complaining that their community never contributes much. We are sorry to hear that, but happy to report that the Nmap community is as vibrant and productive as ever! We would like to acknowledge and thank the many people who contributed ideas and/or code to this release (since 3.50). Special thanks go out to Adam Kerrison, Adam Morgan, Adriano Monteiro Marques, Alan Bishoff [ huge list goes on and on ... ]

    So if Nessus can't get enough help [slashdot.org], maybe that says more about how they run the project than their suggestion of an open source community of leeches who don't contribute back.

    • I would LOVE to support Nessus. But all they want is Money. I was even willing to buy commercial licenses for Nessus, but at US$10,000+ per year they are out of their fucking mind.

      In fact, that is exactly what I told the Tenable sales rep, after I picked myself up off the floor. She was not amused.

  • Windows Installer (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I just tried the Windows Installer (XP, SP1) and it works like a charm with WinPCap 3.1. Everything seems to work ok, although I've only run a couple of simple scans with it, just a smoke test really.
  • Awesome! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Slashcrap ( 869349 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @05:28AM (#14614521)
    I just noticed that Nmap 4.0 has a new OS detection fingerprint. It's for the Sony AIBO.

    I don't know how we ever got by without that one! Although I suppose you'd want to know if you had one on your corporate LAN. Sony probably rootkits the little fuckers before they leave the factory.

Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design would be accurate. -- K.E. Iverson

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