This page will be continuously updated to reflect the current state of the evolving plan for the Next Generation ShieldsUp! Port Scanner.

Scanning Features:

	Automatic Machine Status Scan Entering the Sensor Scanning Region will perform a very quick appraisal of the target machine to determine a number of aspects of the connection: Presence of firewall, stealthing capability, stealth penetration capability, round-trip packet-delay time, coarse bandwidth estimate, connection quality estimation. This initial test will be used to set the status of the rest of the page. For example, since an "open" UDP port appears the same as one that's "stealthed", UDP scans will not be available to stealthed machines. (It will be necessary for users wishing a UDP scan to "lower their shields" during the testing.)
	Three types of testing will be available:   Contiguous Scan through every port in a contiguous region (ports 1-1023).   Targeted Scan of a set of specific known high-risk target ports.   Manual Probe of individual user-defined ports.
	Multiple tests: Based upon those three testing classes, the Next Generation ShieldsUp Sensor Sweep offers the following capabilities: "Ever Encountered Before" Sensor Sweep This tests ALL PORTS (1-65,535) which have EVER BEEN FOUND OPEN by ANY past use (by anyone) of ANY of the other scans below! Since MOST of the 65,535 possible ports will "never occur in nature" this will be a very useful and self-adjusting condensation of the other scan tests. And, it will be continuously matured by everyone's use of the other tests. Two Minute Sensor Scan of ALL traditional TCP and UDP service ports This will scan ALL TCP (and UDP on non-stealthed machines) service ports numbered 1-1023. The total scanning time will vary, but any machine and connection should be fully scannable in less than 2 minutes. Known Trojan Sensor Sweep A continuously growing list of known Trojan ports will be scanned. Since the user's firewall SHOULD BE LOWERED during the sensor scan — to allow for the detection of Trojans hiding behind it — the sensor probes should cause the return of affirmative responses to dramatically reduce the total testing time. 'Captain's Discretion' Sensor Probe The user may list any individual ports to be scanned to remotely test for specific machine vulnerabilities. For all ports specified both TCP and UDP (UDP on non-stealthed machines) probes will be launched. Possibly an 'Extended Profile' Test This would not be any sort of port probe, but an examination of other aspects of the machine's appearance on the Net. ICMP types reflected, other remotely detectable vulnerabilities, etc.
	Continuous verification that target machine remains online: Using new technology to penetrate any stealth firewalls and NAT routers, an encrypted, secure, "open channel" will be maintained between the user's browser and our server throughout the duration of the next-generation scanning. This channel will be used to continuously notify the user of scanning progress and to assure our scanner of the continuing Internet presence of the target machine. All outbound scanning probes will be immediately terminated if the target machine should disconnect from the Internet or otherwise become unavailable.
	Advanced Scanning Features - Fragmented Packet Scanning: During beta testing we'll see whether any personal and commercial firewalls are vulnerable to fragmented packets. If so we'll develop a firewall characterization for this vulnerability.
	Scans user-interruptible at any time: The user may terminate any ongoing scan in favor of another, or before leaving the scanning page.
	Secondary "background" window scanning: The new scanning system will employ a multi-frame display to allow continuous progress monitoring, scan interruption, etc. Since scans may require several minutes, explicit support will be provided to open a secondary browser window to allow scanning to proceed while the user browses elsewhere.
	TCP, UDP, or BOTH: All scans will offer TCP and UDP scans, with both enabled by default but either can be disabled for "half time" scans.

Other Features:

	Dedicated "Sensor Sweep" scanning newsgroup: The new "Sensor Sweep" scanner will be linked to a dedicated grc.com newsgroup for discussion of results and solutions. It will also have a matching archive.* newsgroup to maintain a permanent record.
	Extensive statistics accumulation and display: The findings of all scans, sweeps, and probings will "sum into" separate statistical databases which mature over time to show the incidences of port findings.
	Help on lowering firewall shields: Since effective Trojan sweeping requires the removal of the firewall, the page will need per-firewall instructions for 'lowering the shields' (disabling the firewall) during Trojan Sweeps.

Other Issues:

The existing 'classic' ShieldsUP scanner will remain unchanged. As the concept and plan for this Next Generation scanner has matured and developed, it has become clear that it will be a tremendous resource for Internet-savvy users . . . but that it is not the right solution for the raw Internet "newbie". Therefore, the current scanner will be left intact — essentially unchanged — only receiving the technology improvements it needs, and with a link to the full "Sensor Sweep" Scanner for those who desire more. This way the simple scanner can serve as a gentle introduction to the idea of Internet scanning, and the advanced "Sensor Sweep" Scanner can provide the richness and depth required by the more advanced user.

Open Questions:

None Currently.