> What does "default" mean, and is that definition in conflict with what I > said? The docs say it means INADDR_ANY.
someSocket.bind(('', somePort)) means accept connections from any machine. (We use INADDR_ANY instead of '' in C.) someSocket.bind(('localhost', somePort)) means accept only connections from the local machine. Obviously, the second form is much more secure. Even if you don't plan on accepting any of the connections, it's always more secure to let the operating system turn everyone else away. -- Marc Ewing had a reputation for being able to fix any computer problem at his university. He always wore a red baseball, and so was known as "the guy in the red hat". Later, when he started his own open-source company, he wondered what to call it... -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list