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9.6 TCP/IP Timeout DetectionAnother technology for OS detection is embodied in the tool known as RING. RING is a patch that you apply against Nmap to add temporal response fingerprinting. RING uses OS-specific variations in SYN/ACK timeout and regeneration cycles to fingerprint a remote operating system. As discussed in Chapter 6, TCP is a connected-mode, reliable protocol. As a result, hosts react to unanswered segments by regenerating them after an adapted timeout. As described by the Intranode Research Team, segment regeneration may occur in various states of the TCP transition diagram. For example, the SYN_RCVD state is reached at the very beginning of a tentative TCP connection. If no ACK segment is received before the timeout expires , the system generates a new SYN/ACK segment. However, in some cases, simply regenerating one segment will not permit the connection process to continue. In this situation, the TCP/IP protocol dictates that the responding host assume the network is congested . The responding host will then network-pause, regenerate more segments, and so on, in a cycle. RING uses this TCP timeout feature to detect a remote OS. Since TCP timeout values and regeneration cycles are loosely specified in RFCs, most OSs use their own parameters. Even OSs that share the same IP stack technology might have slightly different timeout values. Thus, RING forces timeouts and then measures delays between successive SYN/ACK resends (and before optional resets). These results are compared to an empirical reference suite in order to identify the remote OS. A typical fingerprinting session occurs as follows :
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