Xref: utzoo comp.protocols.tcp-ip:16702 alt.security:2721 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!rice!hsdndev!spdcc!dirtydog.ima.isc.com!suitti From: suitti@ima.isc.com (Stephen Uitti) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip,alt.security Subject: Re: nosy finger daemons Message-ID: <1991Jun24.211828.10026@ima.isc.com> Date: 24 Jun 91 21:18:28 GMT References: <1991Jun22.160026.8876@nntp.hut.fi> Sender: usenet@ima.isc.com (news) Organization: Interactive Systems, Cambridge, MA 02138-5302 Lines: 37 In article <1991Jun22.160026.8876@nntp.hut.fi> alo@hiisi.hut.fi (Antti Louko) writes: >In article rsm@math.arizona.edu (Robert S. Maier) writes: >>Several machines in the nrl.navy.mil domain have an interesting >>undocumented feature: if you finger them, they finger you right back! >>Examples are tiger.nrl.navy.mil and ccf.nrl.navy.mil. Try it >>yourself; if your finger daemon logs incoming requests you'll pick >>it up at once. > >>though. In fact it's rather amusing. Has anyone ever seen anything >>else like this? > >I haven't seen it before, but I have thought about it. I decided not >to implement it. Why? Think about it. What if my fingerd and theirs >both implement this "feature"? How long they will keep fingering each >other? > >Or if I find another internet site who implements this, say >rixrax.foo.com and give command > >finger @tiger.nrl.navy.mil@rixrax.foo.com > >and let them finger each other forever. If it were my fingerd, and I wanted it to keep a log of people who had fingered my people, I'd only finger people I hadn't fingered recently. Recently means today, since last boot, or if the info isn't still in my fixed maximum sized LRU table, or whatever. The "I'm on vacation" automatic reply mailers are a harder problem. Stephen. suitti@ima.isc.com "We Americans want peace, and it is now evident that we must be prepared to demand it. For other peoples have wanted peace, and the peace they received was the peace of death." - the Most Rev. Francis J. Spellman, Archbishop of New York. 22 September, 1940