Port 466 is a well-known port officially assigned by IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) to a service called "digital-vrc." Both TCP and UDP protocols are registered under this name by Peter Higginson.1
There's only one problem: the protocol doesn't appear to exist.
What Is digital-vrc?
No one knows. The IANA registry lists the name and the contact person, but no RFC defines it. No specification documents it. No software appears to use it. The name suggests something related to "virtual reality" or "virtual reality computing" (VRC), but that's speculation. The official description in the IANA database is simply "digital-vrc"—the name repeated back at itself with no additional context.
This is a ghost port. Officially assigned, technically reserved, practically abandoned.
Why Ghost Ports Exist
The Internet's port numbering system is managed through formal registration with IANA. Someone—in this case Peter Higginson—submitted a request to reserve port 466 for a protocol called digital-vrc. IANA approved it and added it to the official registry.
Then nothing happened.
Perhaps the protocol was never implemented. Perhaps it was implemented but never deployed. Perhaps it ran briefly in a private network somewhere and was forgotten. The registry doesn't track whether assignments are actually used—only that they're claimed.
The Internet is full of these ghosts. Ports reserved for protocols that never launched, or that launched and vanished without documentation, leaving behind only a number and a name.
What the Well-Known Range Means
Port 466 sits in the well-known port range (0-1023), which is reserved for services assigned by IANA. These ports are supposed to represent standardized protocols that anyone can implement by reading the specification. They're meant to be the foundation of the Internet's service layer.
But port 466 has no specification to read. It has a reservation but not a reality.
Well-known ports require special privileges on Unix-like systems—only root can bind to them. This restriction exists because these ports are supposed to represent trusted, standardized services. Port 466 is protected by that same restriction, even though the service it's protecting doesn't exist.
Checking What's Listening on Port 466
Even though digital-vrc isn't documented, you can still check if anything is using port 466 on your system:
On Linux or macOS:
On Windows:
If nothing responds, the port is silent—which is the expected state for port 466. If something does respond, it's not digital-vrc. It's something else using an abandoned reservation.
The Honest Reality
Port 466 is a number in a database. It's not carrying traffic. It's not running a protocol. It's not part of the Internet's working infrastructure.
It's a reminder that the port registry is a mix of the essential and the forgotten. Some ports carry the Internet on their backs. Others—like 466—are historical artifacts from projects that never quite happened.
The well-known port range is supposed to be the Internet's bedrock, but it includes both the foundations we build on every day and the foundations that were poured but never used. Port 466 is the latter: reserved, registered, and entirely absent from the networks we actually use.
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