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Finger

The official specification of the FINGER service is provided in RFC 742, RFC-742. This RFC provides an interface to the finger programs at remote sites.

"finger @domain" provides a list of all online users at the site named "domain". "finger user@domain" provides about user named "user".

Security ramifications of running a finger server should be considered before making this service available.

For example,All examples in this paper are real. the White House has a secure finger server. 

rostam-4>date
Mon Jun  7 19:38:47 PDT 1993
rostam-5>finger clinton@whitehouse.gov
[whitehouse.gov] 
 
    Finger service for arbitrary addresses on whitehouse.gov is not
supported. If you wish to send electronic mail, valid addresses are
"PRESIDENT@WHITEHOUSE.GOV", and "VICE.PRESIDENT@WHITEHOUSE.GOV".
It is possible to provide access to an organization's phone book through finger. One such example is the MIT finger server.

MIT Finger  

The MIT finger facility is a prototype for an MIT-wide online directory service. To use it, simply type "finger lastName@mit.edu". To get instructions for usage, type "finger help@mit.edu".

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