[CQ-Contest] Is there any HTTP cluster streams (not telnet)?

[Jack Haverty]

On 5/22/19 7:37 PM, Gerry Hull wrote:
> The problem with
> running telnet on port 80 is that it is the well-known http port.  You can
> telnet to http and vice versa, but it would not be much fun.

IIRC, port assignments are just a convention adopted by "the community"
back in the 80s.  Unless something has changed since I was involved in
that fray, there is no enforcement of such conventions.

That means that anyone, anywhere, can bring up a Telnet-based server
listening on port 80, instead of the conventional web server that
listens there.  Clients could then connect using telnet to that server,
but of course they'd need to be using programs that they can somehow
tell to use port 80 instead of the conventional telnet port.  Web
connections to such a server "would not be much fun", but telnetting to
port 80 should work fine.

Perhaps one of the cluster operators would add a "port 80 service" to
their cluster, using a different internet address from any current web
server.  Or someone could bring up a "gateway" server, located outside
of firewalls, that patches incoming telnet connections on port 80 to
outgoing connections to the clusters using the standard telnet port.

Firewalls that rely on simply blocking some ports are pretty flimsy as
barriers.  If you look at how common "apps" like games, house
controllers, news readers, et al manage to "call home" to their
corporate servers, you'll probably find that they sidestep firewalls by
simply using port 80 to communicate with their servers somewhere out on
the Internet.  Ham radio servers could do the same.

The long-term solution is some successor to Telnet...but there are
"hacks" that would work in the interim.

/Jack 73 de K3FIV