WEIRD: telnet

[Anthony Atkielski]

Chris writes:

> I think we're both assuming what the user is doing and the reasons as to
> why. Let's just agree that:
>
> 1. Telnet can use any ports providing the user redirects.
> 2. Telnet passes clear text no matter what.
> 3. ssh ought to be used to replace Telnet whenever possible.
> 4. ssh also can be made to work with any port other then 22

%ssh -p 21 localhost
ssh: connect to host localhost.atkielski.com port 21: Connection refused
%

Telnet uses a protocol that is identical to many other protocols apart
from the text of the messages exchanged.  SSH requires a specific
handshaking sequence that other services on arbitrary ports do not
support.  So if you want to test the SMTP port, or the POP3 port, or any
one of quite a few other ports, you must use telnet.  Additionally,
there is no security advantage to using any other client in these cases,
since these protocols are not intrinsically secured, and any protocols
that are secured are unlikely to use the same security protocol as that
used by SSH.

SSH can be made to work using any port--provided that it is a standard
SSH connection to a SSH service listening on the addressed port.  That
obviously won't be the case if one is testing other services.

So the only situation in which telnet can really be replaced by SSH is
for a standard login.

Since the original poster is trying to connect to port 61, I assume he
is using telnet to test the service on that port, and so SSH is
irrelevant.

-- 
Anthony