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

[rjairam at gmail.com]

Bear in mind that port 80 is blocked by most home ISPs, which is where most
DX cluster nodes reside.

73
Ria
N2RJ

On Sun, May 26, 2019 at 2:26 PM Jack Haverty <k3fiv at arrl.net> wrote:

> 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
>
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