On January 14, 2026, global telnet traffic observed by GreyNoise sensors fell off a cliff. A 59% sustained reduction, eighteen ASNs going completely silent, five countries vanishing from our data entirely. Six days later, CVE-2026-24061 dropped. Coincidence is one explanation.
The pattern points toward one or more North American Tier 1 transit providers implementing port 23 filtering
I remember using telnet on a Palm Pilot, linked to the internet via IRDA to my (pre-smart) cell phone to log into my companies’ server to fix something while I was on holidays.
Similar memories here. The first time I went on IRC using a Palm Pilot connected to a Ricochet modem, while in a moving vehicle (not driving!) felt like magic.
For me, it was not while moving, but while sitting on the beach.