Originally posted here by pskyboy
This is one of the reasons i disagree with making port scanning illegal, i mean its not illegal to dial every extension and see if you get a connection so why should it be illegal to search for ports on a machine.
actually this anologous to Telemarketing - and yes its becoming more harder in the US for telemarketers to just call anyone..

as far as port scans tho - i think everyone whose got some inclination to exploring the net has a natural tendency to scan also - curiousity is a natural thing - you give up certain "safety nets" when you connect to the net - just a fact of life - thats like expecting a shark not to bite you when you jump in the water with them - stay on the boat or get a dive cage - people shouldnt be chastised by their ISP for trying to find out what or whose out there in the big black void - granted if your sending out gazillion packets per second, they should shut you down since it affects everyone - like what people say here ..you may just want to lower your firewall's alerting message if it annoys you - or just have fun with it and portscan back while they're scanning you - werks fer me!