On Feb 26, 2011, at 9:53 AM, mick wrote:
No reputable security researcher would a) scan a network without that network owner's explicit permission, nor b) use tor for that scan.
Lots of reputable security researchers who scan the entire internet without getting permission. You can't get permission from every operator in the world, but you still need to do good and interesting research. Examples of reputable researchers who have scanned the whole internet include Dan Bernstein, Dan Kaminsky, and EFF. (At least I think we're reputable. :) ) I don't know for sure, but I can't imagine Arbor, CAIDA, and Renesys can do their jobs without scanning the internet.
Using Tor to scan the internet is a good way to see how the internet looks from different perspectives at once, which can be quite valuable.