re: commonly blocked ports (but not on backbones)

seems to me this is the wrong question... a default security "posture" (network or system, isp or enterprise or any type of entity) should be: "if it's not explicitly allowed, it's denied."

apologies, i see the original poster was talking about a *backbone*... my mind was on campus/edge/customer networks. this policy, of course, does not apply to backbones (unless you want an avalanche of customer calls). -b