I don't necessarily consider probing to be the most likely path, but
assuming that it is used: A probe consists of sending some string of
characters for the userid, and some string for the password (of course
the PortMaster doesn't reveal whether you've found a real userid), and
the only interesting thing is how many characters you need to vary
between attempts.
If you want to discuss these aspects of userid/password protection
further, I suggest we take it to private mail - there's really nothing
PortMaster-specific about them.
--Per Hedeland
per@erix.ericsson.se