What Port 1706 Is
Port 1706 sits in the registered port range (1024–49151). These ports are assigned by IANA to specific services and applications, distinguishing them from the well-known ports (0–1023) used by core Internet protocols and the ephemeral ports (49152–65535) used for temporary client connections.
IANA lists port 1706 as assigned to jetform on both TCP and UDP.1
The Company Behind It
JetForm Corporation was an Ottawa-based software company founded in 1982 (originally as Indigo Software). They built electronic forms software, first for the Canadian federal government and IBM, and later for enterprise customers worldwide. Their product JetForm Designer let organizations build, distribute, and process forms electronically, at a time when paper was still the default.
During the late 1990s, JetForm's team developed XFA (XML Forms Architecture), an XML-based format for interactive forms. Adobe later incorporated XFA directly into the PDF specification. Every fillable PDF form that has ever asked for your name and signature carries a piece of JetForm's work.2
On September 13, 2001, JetForm rebranded as Accelio. Adobe Systems acquired Accelio in February 2002 and retired the product line in 2004.
Port 1706 outlasted the company that registered it.
What You'll Find Here Today
Nothing official. JetForm software no longer runs in any current environment, so port 1706 has no active legitimate service listening on it. If you see traffic on this port, it's either:
- Leftover legacy JetForm infrastructure (rare, but large enterprises held onto old software for decades)
- An application that chose this port arbitrarily
- Something worth investigating
How to Check What's Listening
macOS / Linux:
Windows:
If something is listening, the process ID will tell you what it is. On macOS/Linux, lsof names the process directly.
Why Unassigned (and Dormant) Ports Matter
The registered port range contains thousands of reservations like this one. Software companies registered ports decades ago, their products shipped, their companies merged or died, and the ports remain reserved in the IANA database indefinitely. IANA doesn't reclaim ports.
This creates a kind of sediment layer in the port registry: allocations that reflect the software industry of the 1990s, preserved in amber. Port 1706 is not unique. It's one of hundreds of ports registered to companies and products that no longer exist.
The practical consequence: when developers need a port for a new application, they check whether a port is officially assigned before using it. Dormant ports like 1706 occupy that namespace but rarely cause conflicts, because nothing real is listening.
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