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" The good news is that Shodan is almost exclusively used for good. Matherly, who completed Shodan more than three years ago as a pet project, has limited sear
by DangerousPie 14y ago
" The good news is that Shodan is almost exclusively used for good.
Matherly, who completed Shodan more than three years ago as a pet project, has limited searches to just 10 results without an account, and 50 with an account. If you want to see everything Shodan has to offer, Matherly requires more information about what you're hoping to achieve -- and a payment. "
How does the fact that he charges for it mean that it's "almost exclusively used for good"? I would argue there is very little incentive to pay for something like this unless there is a monetary gain.
- NegativeK 14y agoI seem to remember Matherly saying that he charged larger institutions who need lots of data for legit research. He also (as of a year and a half ago) said that he was basically breaking even. I guess a university security researcher is looking for monetary gain in the form of grants, though.
- achillean 14y agoActually, a lot of companies use Shodan data for research! For example, if you want a training set for your new webapp fingerprinting software then loading Shodan might be a good start. Or if you want to create whitepapers for your business, to drive sales for a specific product/ service, then Shodan can provide some empirical data to back up your claims. As was demonstrated with the Internet Census 2012, for people with bad intentions it's easier and much less attention-getting to just use a botnet (plus you don't need to go through the typical business agreements as you would with me). I hope that clarifies it a bit!