response 25 of 88:

Aug 4 06:09 UTC 1996

kerouac's program, possibly without the logging feature, sounds like something
some people might like using.  I don't think I'd use it, but there are lots
of programs here that I don't use.  It's not worth my time to write something
I don't really care about, but if somebody else wanted to write soemthing with
that kind of interface I wouldn't have any objection to installing it
(assuming it was fairly well written and didn't have any of the security or
system load problems that would normally keep us from installing something.

response 27 of 88:

Aug 4 09:18 UTC 1996

        Regarding janc's response that finger queries are relatively
anonymous ----
I took the trouble of getting the RFC for the finger user information
protocol from ds.internic.net (RFC 1288, D. Zimmerman).

Below are sections from that.

The following describes what SHOULD means in the RFC:
>   * "SHOULD"
>
>      This word or the adjective "RECOMMENDED" means that there may
>      exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore this
>      item, but the full implications should be understood and the case
>      carefully weighed before choosing a different course.

The following mentions about logging finger queries.
>3.2.7.  Audit trails
>
>   Implementations SHOULD allow system administrators to log Finger
>   queries.

When the protocol specifies that logging SHOULD be allowed by
implementations of finger, it implies that finger queries can be
traced by the sysadmin if wanted. So there is no anonymity in a
finger query at the sysadmin level.

        So what is the real issue in stopping that information
at the sysadmin level ? Why shouldn't the info be provided to
users ?

        If Mary feels that her privacy should be guarded while
she fingers someone, then the finger ajax example someone gave
suits her concern. She can decide if she really wants to continue
finger.

response 29 of 88:

Aug 4 14:52 UTC 1996

I think some people are too concerned about what other people are doing, or
what other people see them doing.  This finger discussion is a perfect example
of it - one set of people who is paranoid about who is accessing information
about them, and another set of people who are paranoid about people knowing
that they are accessing information about someone else.  Is this the same set
of people?  I don't know.  
 
I think it would be an extremely challenging task to make Grex such a private
place that you could do whatever you want without other people knowing what
you were doing.
 
should 'ps' be disabled?  you can write a small script to watch a person, a
pty, a tty, or everyone, and log every command they execute. 
 
what about party?  if it isn't a private channel, people outside of party can
see what is going on, and the people in party don't know!
 
things like this have already been 'closed off', such as mailq, which let you
see who was sending mail where, while it was waiting in the queue.  Well, if
someone wants to, they can still do this when they are logged on using that
'ps' thing I mentioned a moment ago.

So, to the original topic, I think Grex users have a right to know who is
fingering them, but should be responsible for dealing with it themselves.
 
I also think that making finger 'interactive' is impractical, in particular
from an access from the internet perspective.

response 31 of 88:

Aug 4 16:20 UTC 1996

There is much information that sysadmin has access to, if desired, that
clearly shouldn't be made public.  Sysadmin has certain responsibilities that
supercede some rights to privacy.

As far as fingering, if there's an opportunity for the person to decline being
logged, no problem.  IMHO, I doubt many people will say "Sure, log me"

response 33 of 88:

Aug 4 18:38 UTC 1996

  I wrote my .plan to be read. There are a lot of things about me that I don't
reveal, or will never reveal. My sister, OTOH, declined to have a .plan and
consequently, no one knows anything about her. No biggie.
  Too much regulation in anything is bad. Let's not bog grex down with a
useless program that no one likes. vedagirl, I'd suggest that you re-write
your .plan file, or make an announcement that you would like to make some
friends and invite any and all to send you e-mail. Who knows what will happen?
That is the exact way that I met freida, and today. we are great friends.

response 35 of 88:

Aug 4 19:12 UTC 1996

I agree with a previous response...as long as users are notified that
someone is logging their !fingering and haved the option of 
discontinuing rather than revealing themselves, thereshouldnt be
a problem.  Grex should be striving for as close to full disclosure as
possible without breaching security.  99.9% of people here
likely have nothing to hide in their plans and dont care who reads them.
The only reason people would care is pure paranoia and that shouldnt
be a considration.

response 37 of 88:

Aug 5 00:42 UTC 1996

Of 493 remote finger requests in the past 19 hours, only 172 had remote
user information.  The finger protocol includes a "forward" feature that
remote users could use to hide their identity, even if their ISP would
normally send us this information.  On grex, we don't log any
information on what people finger.  We (staff) are only interested in
people at remote sites who might be abusing the link; not what they're
looking at.

response 39 of 88:

Aug 5 09:01 UTC 1996

re: 38

        Same story - Different day..

        You want a program or script, then write it or find an author.

        You've already been informed that some of the data is kept around,
        but in no case all the data.

        Exactly where in the above statement(s) are you unable to read and
        understand what has been said?

        Sheesh... You want the goodies and you want someone else to write
        them AND you are a majority of one.. Get a grip, ok?

response 41 of 88:

Aug 5 09:59 UTC 1996

Sorry about the above response. If this is really wasting all our time we will
stop this *now* ...

response 43 of 88:

Aug 5 11:33 UTC 1996

The script in #40 has a syntax error : while ( 1 ) should read as while test
true.

response 45 of 88:

Aug 5 13:36 UTC 1996

pete's response asking me to write a script if i really needed it that bad
triggered all the above responses. I wont run such a script on any system.
But when pete says "Buddy, the logs are there, the shell is there, you are
there,... Get your own way of figuring out", I can't really go out and figure
it out myself. (as in #40). We are discussing whether it is right to expose
certain parts of the finger log to users. I am not asking for adhoc queries
on the log file like 
        "Who fingered user pete ? " | "How many of 'em were females ?"
I am going to ask :
        "Who are the people who wanted vedagiri to know that they fingered him
?".

It involves just me and a person who has agreed to finger logging.

If, i repeat *if*, we can afford to give the person who was fingered the
information he requires, without overloading grex with too many processes,
log space and without compromising on individual privacy or system security
there is no reason why this shouldn't be provided.

response 47 of 88:

Aug 5 17:13 UTC 1996

  I don't like a lot of regulation, and I don't want you to turn grex into
a police state, vedagirl. As a rule that I adopted long ago, I never hit on
any females for the purposes of finding a date, or otherwise. I practice good
netiquette, and I would hope others do. Unfortunatly, there is a small but
vocal group that does not, and because of them you're willing to slap a
regulation on the 99% who doesn't need or want it.

response 49 of 88:

Aug 5 18:33 UTC 1996

Re #45: I think the result of implementing what you propose
would be that people would use finger less, since they wouldn't
know what they were setting themselves up for. As others have
pointed out, if you want to make friends here there are more
direct and appropriate ways of doing so that are not invasive
of privacy.