Fascinating interview with Fyodor, the creator of the Nmap port-scanning tool. He discusses some of the ways that Nmap has been used (ranging from Chinese students using it to bypass governmental "internet-jamming", to its recent fame as the tool-of-choice in The Matrix), talks about the etiquette of doing port-scans on unknown computers (including what he thinks about script kiddies), and also brings up how he's launched attacks against a few companies himself.

This is extremely interesting information from someone who really knows his stuff.

Some of the info here is too technical for the average person on the street to understand, but I recommend that even non-techies scan through it for the human interest stories in the interview. You'll learn a lot!

Slashdot Interview: Fyodor, creator of Nmap, speaks