On Mon, Feb 24, 2003 at 05:44:30PM -0800, Fardid, Reza wrote:
> Pardon me for asking, but what or who constitutes "a fully
> and publicly documented protocol" ?
A protocol where you can get documentation on what the packets look like
without having to sign a non-disclosure agreement that would prevent one
from making publicly available software that dissects those packets.
> What I know is that is can be sniffed,
*ANY* protocol "can be sniffed" if, for example, it runs on Ethernet.
That's hardly sufficient to make it possible to write a dissector for
it; that just means you can read the raw bytes of the packet into a
sniffer; it doesn't mean the sniffer will be able to dissect the packet
and show you what the fields in the packet are.
> and IANA recognizes it.
"Recognizes" it in the sense that they have, for example, assigned a
port number to it?
If so, that's also insufficient to make it possible to write a dissector
for it. That just means somebody's filled out this form:
http://www.iana.org/cgi-bin/usr-port-number.pl
and gotten a port number back for the IANA; having gotten that, they can
use that port number for a proprietary protocol and not publish
information on how it works.
> I am trying to find out what I need to contribute, if I am
> neither the protocol developer, nor affiliated with the organization/entity
> that has developed the protocol ?
You need to contribute either
1) a protocol spec for the protocol
or
2) information about how to get a protocol spec for the
protocol.