🚀 go-pugleaf

In <37CB6A34.7178@cygnus.uwa.edu> mixeman <lavida@cygnus.uwa.edu> writes:

>I tried to run my address book through a link checker, which uses
>finger protocol to see if user exists.
>However it seems many ISPs have dropped finger daemons, so this is
>not very useful.
>Is this fingerd removal to stop spammers just fingering common names to
>build up their list of addresses or what?
>Secondly, is there another way of finding if e-mail address is still
>valid, apart from just sending a test message?

The fingerd binaries as supplied with most common *nix operating systems are
generall regarded as being very insecure, and many sysadmins disable it
since it gives out more data that people generally like to be given to
totally unknown users. There are also a number of ways to probe using the
finger daemon to exploit bugs, gain root access to systems, etc.

However, there are some very good, much more secure versions of GNU finger
around now, such as ICSI finger, etc...

Regards,

Craig.
-- 
            Craig Dewick. Send email to "cdewick@lios.apana.org.au"
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