Finger (protocol)
Internet protocol suite |
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Application layer |
Transport layer |
Internet layer |
Link layer |
In
Name/Finger protocol
The Name/Finger protocol is based on Request for Comments document RFC 742 (December 1977) as an interface to the name
and finger
programs that provide status reports on a particular computer system or a particular person at network sites. The finger program was written in 1971 by Les Earnest who created the program to solve the need of users who wanted information on other users of the network. Information on who is logged in was useful to check the availability of a person to meet. This was probably the earliest form of presence information for remote network users.
Prior to the finger program, the only way to get this information on
Finger user information protocol
The finger
The Finger user information protocol is based on RFC 1288 (The Finger User Information Protocol, December 1991). Typically the
The program would supply information such as whether a user is currently logged-on,
Security concerns
Supplying such detailed information as e-mail addresses and full names was considered acceptable and convenient in the early days of networking, but later was considered questionable for privacy and security reasons.[citation needed]
Finger information has been used by
The finger
fingerd
(among others) to spread.[2]For these reasons, by the late 1990s the vast majority of sites on the Internet no longer offered the service.[citation needed]
Application support
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It is implemented on Unix (like macOS), Unix-like systems (like Linux and FreeBSD), and current versions of Windows (finger.exe command). Other software has finger support:
See also
- LDAP
- Ph Protocol
- Social network service
- WebFinger
References
- Usenet: [email protected]– via Colbath, Sean.
- ^ Spafford, Eugene (8 December 1988). "An analysis of the worm" (PDF). Purdue University. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
External links