Port 470: scx-proxy — The Ghost in the Registry

Port 470 sits in the well-known ports range (0-1023), officially assigned to a service called "scx-proxy" for both TCP and UDP. But here's the strange part: almost no documentation exists about what scx-proxy actually does.¹

What This Port Is Assigned To

According to IANA's Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry, port 470 belongs to "scx-proxy."² That's it. No RFC reference. No protocol specification. No company name or contact information in the public registry.

It exists in the ghost zone of the Internet—a registered name with no visible implementation.

The Well-Known Ports Range

Port 470 falls within the well-known ports range (0-1023), also called system ports.³ These ports are assigned by IANA through formal procedures—typically requiring IETF review or IESG approval. On most systems, only root or privileged processes can bind to these ports.

Well-known ports are supposed to be the Internet's reserved parking spaces—official assignments for fundamental protocols. Port 22 for SSH. Port 80 for HTTP. Port 443 for HTTPS.

But port 470 is assigned to something nobody can find.

What Probably Happened

The IANA registry is full of these ghost entries. Someone submitted a port assignment request years ago—maybe decades ago. They were building a proxy system. They needed a port number. IANA assigned 470.

Then one of these things happened:

• The project never shipped
• The company went out of business
• The protocol was replaced by something better
• It became an internal tool that nobody outside one organization ever used

The assignment remains. The protocol doesn't.

Why This Matters

Unassigned and ghost ports like 470 reveal something important about Internet infrastructure: the registry is append-only. Once a port is assigned, it stays assigned. There's no cleanup crew removing dead protocols from the well-known range.

This creates a strange archaeology. The port registry is a fossil record of every networking idea from the past 40 years—the ones that succeeded, the ones that failed, and the ones that nobody remembers.

Checking What's Actually Listening

If you want to see what's actually using port 470 on your system:

# On Linux/macOS
sudo lsof -i :470
sudo netstat -an | grep 470

# On Windows
netstat -an | findstr :470

Chances are: nothing. Port 470 probably sits empty on your machine, officially assigned but never claimed.

The Honest Reality

Port 470 has a name but no protocol. An assignment but no implementation. It's a reminder that the IANA registry isn't just a list of what exists—it's a list of what was once planned, promised, or hoped for.

Some of those hopes shipped. Some didn't. Port 470 is one that didn't.

The registry remembers anyway.