This is sure to be a stupid question, but that never stopped me before.
How do I find out all the valid addresses from a particular site?

 for example, the free press has a site on the net as  det-freepress.com

so could I send mail to postmaster@det-freepress.com and get back a list
of all valid addresses at that particular site?

thanks for your help.

33 responses total.

You could, if the postmaster at that sote was so inclined to bother making
up such a list and sending it back to you. :-)
Er, change "sote" to "site".

"postmaster" is just a mail alias that points to however has that
responsibility at a particular site. For instance, on this system,
anything sent to postmaster goes to meg and mju.

I think you need to be a little more precise with your question. I don't
know what exactly you are asking.

It's possible, but you'll have better success if you have a particular
user in mind.  I've requested single address from postmasters, giving
a reason for my request, and have been very successful.  I don't know
how forthcoming they would have been if I'd asked for a list of all
users.

Omni, where did you find out about this det-freepress site?  Neat!  What are
they planning to use it for?  What does it have to do with msen?

Oh yeah, I'm here to answer a question, not ask more of 'em.

The finger command might help you here.  Type at the next prompt, 

!finger @det-freepress.com

and you'll get back a list of the people who are signed on now and some
info about each of them.  The login (left column) is what goes before the @
sign when constructing an email address.  So if you see 'foo' as a login,
try sending mail to foo@det-freepress.com

If you know the login of the preson you want to contact, try this:

!finger emv@det-freepress.com

where emv is at least part of the name or login of your suspected user.
If it can, the finger program will return the person's login and other
information about him/her.

You can leave out the @grex.cyberspace.org when using finger to search for
other grex users.

 To answer your question. I saw the address in the Business section
on monday, a column written by D. Gillmore about computers and computing.
I was hoping that other free press personell like editors and reporters
would also have on-line addresses.

As this seems to have become the finger item, I have another question
about finger.  Sometimes I want to finger a person to see when (s)he was
on last. Long .plan files scrolling by can be worse than useless after
you've seen them a dozen times.  Is there a way to suppress the .plan from
finger's output?

You could pipe the output of finger into the "head" command, thusly:

        finger -m kaplan | head -3

That would show you just the first three lines of finger output.

You can also use the   last   command, as in the following:

> $ last kaplan
> kaplan    ttyh4                     Wed Feb 16 06:01   still logged in
> kaplan    ttyh5                     Tue Feb 15 11:25 - 13:08  (01:42)
> ^C

If you do this, your interrupt key had better be working, or you will wait
a *long* time before it's done.  On the other hand, you can give more than
one user's name (or none, if you want to see everyone).

Is there an internet equivilant to last (or will last work over the net?)?

 
        Sometimes, last call times for a particular user are included along
with the output for a remote finger.  Other than that ...

Try "f -p username".  The "-p" switch tells finger to leave off the
.plan file.

Hmm.  Thanks much, Marc.  Didn't know that, but there are plenty of times
I might be interested.

I have a list of people from around the country (a non-profit board),
and I want to find the most convenient and economical internet access
for each of them. A few already have university internet access, so they
are taken care of. The rest don't know much about internet, so I'm
trying to find "connections" for them. I know there addresses and phone
numbers. How do I search for internet nodes for them that are local
phone calls? (I have a CIS account, so I have searched from within CIS
for local access for each - but there isn't any on CIS.)

Hello? Anyone there? Let me help the question by listing the cities
and phone exchanges from which I seek internet access:

Mississippi State  MS  (601)-324
Charles Town WV  (304)-725
Tuscaloosa  AL  (205)-752
Ellicot City  MD (410)-750
Shepherdstown  WV (304)-876

We're here, we just don't have a clue.

The only place that I would know of to check is alt.internet.services.
Unfortunately, trn crawls and a.i.s has a *very* low signal to noise
ratio.  If you have the time and interest, you could either look for
a FAQ there or post your question and hope that you get a response.

I realize this might not be much help, but it's all that I have to offer.

I posted my question on a Compuserve forum re telecommunications. A
response suggested I investigate Fidonet. I've heard the name, but don't
know what it is. What, where, how, why and when is FidoNet?

All I know about FidoNet is that it's a network of (privately owned?) 
computer systems throughout the US that used to offer low-cost file
transfer and/or mail.  There used to be a FidoNet in Ann Arbor which
had a BBS.

You could probably find out more by posting something in alt.internet.services
and request that responses be mailed to you here.

What are the steps for posting to alt.internet.services (I tried usenet
a couple of years ago and was so put off I never went back)?

It's been a while since I've even looked at the news.  As I recall,
type "!rn" or "!trn", type a "g" then the name of the newsgroup,
then type "?" for help.  I know it's a one letter command to post
an item, but I'm not positive that it's "p".

If someone else has posted lately, please verify or correct this.

Re #17:  in fact, I *think* Meg used to be Fidonet.  I really don't know
anything about Fidonet.

I got to alt.internet.services, and tried to post my question (which
is apparently initiated with f), and was then told that I "obviously"
don't know what I'm doing (true), so go read g news.announce.newusers,
but there were no articles there to read. When I bobble at f, it also
told me that my message would go to thousands of machines worldwide,
and would cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to distribute. I was
properly intimidated, and retreated. Really friendly! What of this tripe
do I ignore, and how do I get past the snotty-nosed doorkeeper?

Yes...   If my memory serves me correctly Meg's first BBS was on her PC
(The name started with a "s, but I can't remember the word) and it was a
Fido Net.

You can get the news.announce.newusers messages via anonymous ftp from
someplace.  Perhaps I'll look for it and put in in /usr/local/inet.
Watch this space.

Re #21: 'f' is 'followup'. It's appropriate to use to respond to someone's
post, but not to start a new thread. As far as trying to intimidate you,
keep in mind that the program doesn't know who it's intimidating.
The fact of the matter is that you *do* want to send it to thousands of
machines Worldwide, you just go ahead and do it.

To start your own thread in a newsgroup, you need to run postnews, I
think. I haven't done it in so long that I really shouldn't be giving advice.
I'd recommend strongly reading any group you were going to post to for at
least a day or two, in order to be sure that your post is necessary and
appropriate. It's netiquette, but it's often ignored, too.

On grex, you can run Pnews (note the upper case P) to post news.  The
first time you run it, you're given helpful hints.

Several interesting Usenet related files are available for anonymous FTP
from rtfm.mit.edu (if you're trying to remember rtfm, think Read the F'ing
Manual).  Some of the files I found in /pub/usenet/news.announce.newusers
are now on grex in /usr/lib/inet/Usenet.  Someone let me know if these
articles become available in the news.announce.newusers newsgroup in such
a way that they won't expire.  In the meantime, perhaps the keeper of
Pnews on grex can point people to these files.

I've had accounts on bbss that have been members of Fidonet.  As I 
understand it it is a network of bbs systems primarily on smaller
machines (dos boxes, amigas, macs etc) which call each other and 
pass mail and news (there called echos).  The system is very slow compared
to Usenet.  I believe this is because it does not make use of the internet
at all, and because I don't think there is really a routing system.  I think
every thing just bounces around until it winds up where it is supposed to get
to. It is kind of an interesting system, but it is no replacement for internet 
access.  There are gateways allowing mail to pass back and forth between Fido
and the internet, but like I said, FIDO is slow so you probably don't  want to
go that route with the people on your list.

Progress: a faq was posted in alt.internet.services, and I learned that
that wasn't the place to inquire about internet access, but to uswe
alt.

(continued, after an ntalk interrupt - I didn't know how to interrupt
cleanly, though someone once told me!) Anyway: for access information,
g alt.internet.access.wanted   It is just access inquiries, and I 
posted mine there (after brazingly ignoring all the dire warnings 
and snide asides about my incompetency (if not my ancestry)). 

I'm glad you read the fine print--make that faq print.  I usually read
the faqs, but missed the part about alt.internet.access.wanted.

Hi....It's first time here and I have a question:
I heard about STARNET, What is this for? Where is it?
I will be grateful for any help.          Thanks.

Hmm.  I've never heard of Starnet.  Do you have any information about
it or any access directions or an internet address?

Well... sorry I don't have any idea but I will ask around here in the lab.
from one of the sys. opr.'s! I believe I will get some answer...hopefully.
If so, I will deliver it here.

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- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss