Does he still write all of his applications in assembly? I always loved how enthusiastic he was about his products and SpinRite was a very helpful tool back before everything I had went to SSD.
The server is definitely overloaded, and at a time when most of the U. S. is either in bed or thinking about heading home from the bar (except me, obviously). Granted, the rest of the awakened world can put the hurt on your server, but I'd prepare for when the East Coast wakes up. :-)
It's rather disappointing that this doesn't default to using nmap's -PN option, since they can be reasonably sure that the host actually is up (after all, it just requested the web page). Not all routers respond to ping.
I'm not sure the design of the website matches what it does. It'll probably scare or at least worry a few people into thinking open ports are scary and bad.
Sure, but don't just steal the Shields Up content! Your description of port scans has been copy-pasted from Shields Up. Your disclaimer text is identical except that "Shields Up" is replaced by "CheckMyRouter"...
Hmm thanks for that feedback. The site is really just getting started so certainly there are some rough edges; will rewrite the disclaimer part and shorten it while i'm at it.
PS: Updated the common portscan description. Also, feel free to get in touch and make it better / more useful.
If a website sees the HTTP connection terminating at some other IP address than the machine your browser is running on, it's some kind of middlebox (proxy, NAT box etc) and not a router.
The central concept of the packet-switched internet is that network nodes forwarding the packets (called routers) are just dumb packet forwarders and invisible to the communicating parties. It's called end-to-end transparency and it's what has enabled new Internet apps to be deployed without requiring support from the network. Like the web, or voip, or bittorrent.
Just because it does other things doesn't make it not a router. The primary purpose of a router is connecting different networks at layer 3, and a consumer-end box is certainly doing so.
What a consumer NAT box typically does is not routing. Routing is IP forwarding without messing with the packets.
See the link in my post.
Here are various other kinds of middlebox devices that are also generally about connecting networks at layer 3 with various side effects vs routing (just like NAT):
It does NAT and then it routes. In addition, any device with ipv6 support does the pure routing without messing with the packets that you speak of. It's a firewall and a NAT device and a router all in one. Sometimes it's a modem too.
