[UPHPU] access server in Utah from Singapore

[Brandon Stout]

Daniel C. wrote:
> On 1/18/07, Brandon Stout <bms at mscis.org> wrote:
>> A traceroute may not tell what you want.  Unfortunately, many routers
>> block icmp packets, so a traceroute will stop at that server even though
>> web traffic goes through it fine.  You might try mptraceroute for
>> windows, which allows you to specify a different port to run the
>> traceroute on, or a similar program for Linux/Unix, if there is one.
>
> Routers on public networks should not block traceroute packets.

Daniel is right.  They *should* not.  Unfortunately, *should* does not
mean *do*.  As usual, we can use Microsoft as an example for not
following. Run:

  traceroute msn.com

Of course, msn is not the only one. On 2007-01-18 (it can change any
time), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traceroute said:

> Supplying such detailed information about the pathways taken was
> considered acceptable and convenient in the early days of the
> Internet, but later was considered questionable for privacy and
> security reasons. Traceroute information has been frequently used by
> hackers <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker> as a way to acquire
> sensitive information about a company's network architecture. By using
> the traceroute command, a hacker or several hackers can quickly map
> out what nodes are available on a company's network architecture and
> exploit vulnerable or compromised nodes/computers.
>
> For these reasons, while traceroute was widely used during the early
> days of Internet <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet>, by the 1990s
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s> the vast majority of sites on the
> internet no longer offered the service.
>

Brandon Stout
http://mscis.org