Port 362 sits in the well-known ports range (0-1023) with an official IANA assignment to a service called "SRS Send" (service name: srssend). The contact listed is Curt Mayer. That's where the trail goes cold.
The Assignment That Exists But Doesn't
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority officially lists port 362 for both TCP and UDP as assigned to "SRS Send."1 But there's no RFC defining this protocol. No public documentation explaining what it does. No known implementations in common network software. No corporate websites claiming to use it.
It exists in the registry, but nowhere else that anyone can see.
What We Don't Know
- What "SRS" stands for
- What problem this protocol was meant to solve
- Whether anyone ever actually used it
- If it's still in use somewhere on private networks
- Why it was registered in the coveted well-known ports range
The well-known ports (0-1023) were supposed to be reserved for fundamental Internet services. Getting one required IETF review or IESG approval. Someone thought SRS Send was important enough to deserve this space. Then it vanished.
Ghost Protocols in the Registry
Port 362 isn't alone. The IANA registry contains hundreds of assigned ports with minimal or no public documentation. Some represent protocols that were designed but never deployed. Others served specific corporate or government needs and were never meant for public use. Some were actively used for years but faded away as technology moved on, leaving only the registry entry behind.
These ghost protocols are archaeological sites—evidence that someone, somewhere, was solving a problem. We just don't know what problem, or whether they succeeded.
What This Port Range Means
Port 362 falls in the well-known ports range (0-1023). Historically, binding to these ports on Unix systems required root privileges. They were meant for core Internet infrastructure—DNS on 53, HTTP on 80, SMTP on 25.
The fact that port 362 has an official assignment means someone went through the formal IANA process to register it. That process exists to prevent conflicts—to ensure that if two different services both tried to use port 362, there would be a single source of truth about who got there first.
The assignment prevents chaos. But it doesn't guarantee the protocol will survive.
Checking What's Actually Listening
Even though port 362 has no known public protocol, something could be listening on it on your system. Here's how to check:
On Linux/Mac:
On Windows:
If nothing returns, the port is closed. If you see a process, you've found something—maybe a private application, maybe malware, maybe someone who actually knows what SRS Send was supposed to be.
Why These Ports Matter
Every assigned port represents a moment when someone believed they were building something important enough to register. Port 362 has a name, a contact, and an official designation. It just doesn't have a story we can read.
Maybe SRS Send is still running somewhere in a data center that hasn't been updated since 1995. Maybe it's on military networks or in industrial control systems where protocols don't need public documentation. Maybe it never made it past a prototype.
The registry remembers. The Internet has moved on.
Related Ports
- Port 88: Kerberos authentication—another service with a well-known port assignment
- Port 464: Kerberos password change—part of the same protocol family
- Port 1-1023: The well-known ports range where port 362 resides
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