COMMAND

    gopher

SYSTEMS AFFECTED

    Systems running gopherd.

PROBLEM

    Gopher is a really  simple protocol.  It  runs on TCP on  port 70.
    Basically it works like this.

        Client Connects
        Client Sends: requesteddoc<CRLF>
        Server Sends: XName of documet <TAB> path to document <TAB> site <TAB>
        port <TAB> +
        .. and repeats through an index list ..

        blah...


    If you send "ftp:ftp.site.com@/"  as your requested document,  the
    gopher server logs on  to the ftp site  anonymously and acts as  a
    proxy.  This is no secret or magic trick, it seems as though  alot
    of gophers link into FTP servers.   That makes your ftp a hell  of
    a lot more anonymous.

    It seems  like a  relatively trivial  thing to  access an intranet
    ftp server  on the  other side  of a  firewall if  you can make it
    look like its coming from the gopher server... after all .. it is.

    So Basically:

        gopher://gopher.anysite.com/ftp:ftp.anothersite.com@/ makes
        gopher.anysite.com act as a proxy for ftp.anothersite.com


    Credit for this goes to Ben Camp.

SOLUTION

    Don't  run  GopherD  on  your   firewall.   This  is  probably   a
    configuration  issue,  but  since  i'm  not  aa  gopher  monger  I
    wouldn't know.