Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!aero!elroy!mahendo!earle
From: earle@mahendo.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Greg Earle)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd
Subject: Re: fingerd allows third party fingers
Message-ID: <381@mahendo.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Date: 18 Dec 88 09:27:42 GMT
References: <2103@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> <1494@helios.ee.lbl.gov>
Reply-To: poseur!earle@mahendo.JPL.NASA.GOV (Greg Earle)
Organization: Sun Microsystems - Los Angeles Consulting
Lines: 22

Allowing third party `finger's also allows one to `reach around' a site
that has a gateway with ipforwarding turned off.  Admittedly, one has
to know something about the layout of the network behind the curtain
(where Carol Merrill is now standing (^: ), but hey, Mr. Morris has taught
us a thing (fing?) or two about fingerd ...

On the other hand, I've found 3rd party fingers to come in really useful
at times.  Just for fun, as a cheap way of finding out whether a Sun
Tech Support Engineer was at the Los Angeles office before I reached for
the phone, I'd do

	finger @losangeles@mountainviewgateway@sun.com

from a JPL machine (in a past life).  Fun!

(N.B. names of internal Sun machines above are wrong, for obvious reasons ... )

-- 
	Greg Earle		earle@Sun.COM
	Sun Microsystems	poseur!earle@mahendo.JPL.NASA.GOV
	Los Angeles Consulting	earle%mahendo@elroy.JPL.NASA.GOV
...!{cit-vax,ames}!elroy!poseur!earle	...!sun!tsunami!valley!poseur!earle