[Full-Disclosure] Re: Re: open telnet port

[Andrew Haninger]

> If you need this on as the norm, please at least use TCP wrappers to
> limit  from where it can be accessed, and change any used passwords
> immediately after reestablishing control.

I think the real insecurity in telnet comes not from buffer-overflows
and whatnot, but rather from people sniffing the network and getting
your password in a nice convenient program window. Actually, my guess
is that the telnet daemon is probably quite secure in terms of remote
exploits.

Try it sometime on a small temporary network. Start ethereal and the
login over telnet to some machine. Right-click on a telnet packet and
select "Follow TCP Stream". In the next window, view the stream as
ASCII. Hey, look, it's your password. This is what convinced me that
telnet is bad.

-Andy