Port Blocking: Pragmatic Prudence, Or IT Overkill?

Greetings from Hidden Villa Hostel in Los Altos Hills, CA. I normally stay here when I visit Silicon Valley for work; I'm here this week for the CONNECTIONS conference. The private cabins are inexpensive, which stretches my travel budget. Plus, after a long day spent 'doing business', it's great to exit highway 280 and almost immediately enter a different world, one where I dodge deer in the driveway at night, fall asleep to the sound of howling coyotes and awaken to the sound of stirring farm animals.

This really is a magical place. And until recently it was impossible to get email here; the surrounding hills did an effective job of blocking all cellular carriers' signals, and dialup phone plugs were nonexistent. Which isn't all bad….unless you're down here for work reasons, that is! Nowadays, Hidden Villa offers free Wi-Fi (which I'm on for the first time as I type this) for its hostel guests. And I suppose I should be grateful for what I've got.

But "what I've got" is only port 80 (HTTP) access. I can't receive or send email in Outlook, either via traditional POP3 and SMTP ports (110 and 25) or the non-traditional ones that Gmail uses (995, and either 465 or 587). I can't do FTP (port 21) or telnet (port 23). I can't update my system clock via NTP (network time protocol, port 123). Heck, I can't even ping URLs or IP addresses….attempts result in a 'Destination Host Unreachable' response from the network's gateway. And although I haven't tried, I bet I can't do Usenet (port 119) either.

I understand why an IT administrator might want to lock down his or her network to prevent abuse. And again….I realize that I'm tapping into a resource that's freely provided….or alternatively stated, is part of my overnight lodging bundled package. But this situation strikes me as a bit excessive. Agree or disagree, readers?

p.s…but I can do Skype And, surprisingly, I can also stream and download tracks from Yahoo Music, and download RSS posts. I don't know what port(s) and protocol)(s) Yahoo Music Jukebox and NewsGator Inbox use.

Followup: for those of you who prefer less rustic overnight accommodations ;-), check out this 'Best and Worst Wi-Fi Hotel' report.