ftp archives disappearing

[Scott Quinn]

> Message: 15
> Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 03:36:06 -0400
> From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>
> Subject: Re: ftp archives disappearing?
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
> Message-ID: <D8CAA477-9A46-4B00-8447-CAC38C4AC832 at neurotica.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> On Mar 13, 2007, at 2:45 PM, Jim Leonard wrote:
>>> apophis$ which finger
>>> /bin/finger
>>> apophis$ which talk
>>> /bin/talk
>>>   ...looks to me like they're still there.
>>
>> Yes, actually try to use them across networks.  There are these
>> funny little things on the outside of most organizations called
>> "firewalls", maybe you've heard of them.
>
>    There is absolutely no need to be a smartass.  I make a living
> running fairly large networks...and not for clueless organizations
> who depend on the crutch of a firewall to implement a secure
> network.  I use "talk" fairly frequently, it works just fine.
>
>           -Dave
>
> -- 
> Dave McGuire
> Port Charlotte, FL

I have seen some ontopic books (UNIX, 10 years old now) that strongly 
recommend disabling finger to prevent unauthorized types from finding 
likely targets among the accounts. Since then, finger services (such as 
cfingerd) have become less of an issue because you can limit some 
information, but it's likely that the old maxim still holds, as well as 
the new one: if you don't positively need it than don't turn it on. Too 
bad, though: 'finger' was nice when you wanted to get an e-mail address 
that you weren't certain of. (after the demise of finger in general 
circulation I used to connect to port 25 and try a couple of vrfys- 
can't do that anymore in most places, but it's a "legitimate" need for 
port 25, right?)