149

Port 149/tcp (and 149/udp, dual-registered) is assigned by IANA to aed-512, described in the registry as the "AED 512 Emulation Service," with both the assignee and contact fields listing [Albert_G_Broscius]. The registration-date, modification-date, and Reference (RFC) columns are all blank in the current registry — no RFC is cited for this assignment, and no fabricated date or reference has been substituted here. The "AED" name does not refer to a medical Automatic External Defibrillator, despite that appearing as a hallucinated AI-search summary during research; it stands for Advanced Electronics Design, Inc., a Sunnyvale, California vendor whose AED 512 (and related AED 767) was a color raster graphics terminal documented in vendor manuals and terminal-history archives from the early-to-mid 1980s. The port assignment therefore reflects an early-Internet-era, vendor-specific terminal-emulation protocol rather than a general-purpose service, and no modern software or daemon is documented as binding to TCP or UDP port 149 today; the nmap-services dataset does record 149/tcp as observed open at approximately 0.000013, its lowest nonzero step, so the port is not literally never seen — just barely. Security references (GRC's Port Authority database and community trojan-port lists) show no history of malware or notable scanning activity tied to this port, so an unexpected open 149/tcp on a host today is more plausibly a forgotten legacy binding, a non-standard service reusing an unused port, or a scan artifact than a known attack vector. Port 149 should not be confused with the adjacent 150/tcp (sql-net, an Oracle SQL*Net-related IANA assignment).

IANA assignment

aed-512 — "AED 512 Emulation Service"; reference (blank — no RFC cited); assignee/contact [Albert_G_Broscius]; dual-registered 149/tcp + 149/udp [Confirmed] — IANA Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry (https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml)

Range class

well-known (0–1023) [Confirmed]

Registration/modification dates

not populated in the IANA registry — left blank/null, not fabricated [Confirmed] — IANA registry (same URL as above)

Prevalence / current adoption

nmap-services observed open-frequency 149/tcp ≈ 0.000013 — the dataset's lowest nonzero step [Confirmed] — nmap-services dataset; sibling 149/udp ≈ 0.000445, some thirty-four times higher. Both negligible; no other evidence of contemporary usage found in sources checked

Related ports

distinct from 150/tcp (sql-net, Oracle SQL*Net) — some low-quality sources conflate the two [Confirmed] — IANA registry (same URL as above)

Primary use

historical terminal emulation for the AED 512 color raster graphics terminal (Advanced Electronics Design, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA), an early-1980s vendor-specific hardware protocol [Likely] — https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/AED_512, http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/aed/graphics/990003-01A_AED_512_767_Color_Graphics_Terminals_Users_Manual_Apr1983.pdf, https://digibarn.com/collections/systems/aed-graphics-workstation/index.html

Other/unofficial uses

none identified; no modern software or daemon found bound to port 149 by default [Unknown]

Security implications

no documented malware, backdoor, or notable scanning history for port 149; GRC's Port Authority page has no risk write-up for it

Typically seen on

no identified host population; nmap-services registers only floor-level open observations for 149/tcp — a dormant/legacy assignment [Unknown]

Analyst caution

one AI-generated search summary conflated "AED" with "Automatic External Defibrillator" (medical) — this is a hallucination; the correct expansion is Advanced Electronics Design, Inc. [Confirmed] — https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/AED_512, https://digibarn.com/collections/systems/aed-graphics-workstation/index.html

Port 149/udp is registered with IANA under the service name aed-512, described simply as "AED 512 Emulation Service," with assignee and contact both listed as Albert G. Broscius. The Reference column is blank in the registry — no RFC or Internet-Draft documents the protocol — and no registration or modification date is recorded, consistent with an early-era assignment predating IANA's practice of dating entries. The name traces to the AED 512, a 13-inch color graphics terminal built by Advanced Electronic Design, Inc. and introduced around March 1982, notable for shipping with "personality" firmware that emulated Tektronix 4010/4014 vector-graphics terminals over serial or parallel links. Read together, the port reservation most plausibly names a legacy Unix network service for talking to or emulating that specific terminal hardware, though no public specification of the network protocol itself was located — only the bare IANA stub plus independent historical confirmation of what an AED 512 was. The assignment is dual-registered identically on 149/tcp. No modern software, daemon, or vendor product using this service name was found, and generic port-scanner "Virus/Trojan" boilerplate for port 149 carries no dated incident or CVE, so it is not treated as a genuine security signal. One AI-generated web summary encountered during research misidentified "AED" as an Automatic External Defibrillator; that reading is a hallucination contradicted by every primary/historical source and is excluded here.

IANA assignment

aed-512 — "AED 512 Emulation Service"; Reference column blank (no RFC); assignee/contact [Albert_G_Broscius]; dual-registered 149/tcp + 149/udp [Confirmed] — https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xml

Range class

well-known (0–1023) [Confirmed]

Registration/modification dates

not recorded in the IANA registry (blank field, left null rather than invented) [Confirmed] — https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xml

Prevalence (scan/nmap-services frequency)

nmap-services observed open-frequency 149/udp ≈ 0.000445 (very low — roughly 4 in 10,000 scanned hosts in the nmap-services sample); the dual-registered 149/tcp side is rarer still at ≈ 0.000013 [Confirmed] — nmap-services dataset

Related ports

149/tcp — identical dual IANA registration (same service name, description, assignee/contact, blank Reference/dates) [Confirmed] — https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xml

Primary use

name references the AED 512, a 1982 color graphics terminal from Advanced Electronic Design, Inc. that emulated Tektronix 4010/4014 vector terminals; the port name is a legacy Unix service reservation for that hardware, but no protocol spec for the network service itself was found [Likely] — https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/AED_512, http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/aed/graphics/990003-01A_AED_512_767_Color_Graphics_Terminals_Users_Manual_Apr1983.pdf

Other/unofficial uses / modern software

none identified — no current daemon, vendor product, or documented use of this port was found [Unknown]

Security implications

auditmypc.com's UDP/TCP port-149 pages show templated "Virus/Trojan: No" boilerplate reused across many unrelated ports, with no CVE or dated incident cited for 149 specifically; GRC's Port Authority listing shows no trojan warning either — treated as low-signal, not a genuine finding

Caution

a web-search AI summary claimed "AED" refers to an Automatic External Defibrillator (medical device); this is a hallucinated misreading contradicted by terminals-wiki, the bitsavers AED-512/767 user manual, and DigiBarn, all of which identify AED 512 as Advanced Electronic Design's graphics terminal — excluded from this entry

[Confirmed] — https://digibarn.com/collections/systems/aed-graphics-workstation/index.html