if you want a copy of this lesson to be sent to you.
"A man without an address is a vagabond; a man with two addresses is a libertine." -- George Bernard Shaw
I have four account addresses. What does that make me? (1)
My main address is PCRISPE1@UA1VM.UA.EDU (stop laughing ... it's NOT funny). I also have a UNIX account address (PCRISPE1@UA1IX.UA.EDU), a P-MAIL address (PCRISPE1@SSS.CBA.UA.EDU), and I even have an address on America Online (CRISPEN@AOL.COM).
The only address that I use regularly is PCRISPE1@UA1VM.UA.EDU
When I was writing the lesson plans for last week's Gopher lessons, I logged on to my UNIX account (PCRISPE1@UA1IX.UA.EDU) just to brush up on some commands. I had not used my UNIX account in over two years (I personally do not like UNIX, and I try to avoid using it as much as is humanly possible) (2)
Sitting in my UNIX account's mailbox were three letters. Each letter was written by someone who said they found my address using an e-mail address search. One of the letters was SIX MONTHS old.
As you can see from the above story, e-mail address searches may not be 100% accurate. You may get a working e-mail address, but there is no guarantee that the address that you get will be on a system that the person that you want to talk to still uses.
The moral of my story is this: while it would be great if you could just type a few commands on your screen and get the e-mail address of anyone in the world, the BEST way to find someone's e-mail address is to call them on the telephone and ASK them for it.
However, it would be cruel for me to tell you that it is possible for you to do an e-mail address search (however flawed such a search might be) and then not show you how to do one of these searches :)
There are several different e-mail address search tools. I am going to show you one of them -- whois.
The "whois" directory is one of the most popular e-mail search tools. 'The whois directory provides names, e-mail and postal mail addresses and often phone numbers for people listed in it. To use it, telnet to
internic.net
No log-on is needed (you can also use whois through Gopher -- check out the University of Minnesota's gopher server in the "phone books" menu).
Once you have accessed the telnet site, the quickest way to conduct a whois address search is to type
whois
at the prompt, replacing Let's check-up on the President of the United States! I type
and the following appears on my screen:
However, I did get some neat information. Let's take a closer look at two
of these entries:
Clinton Group, Inc. (CLINTON-DOM) CLINTON.COM The first entry is an entry for a site. "Clinton Group, Inc." is the
real-life name of this particular site. The "CLINTON-DOM" part is
just a "handle" that the whois database uses to identify this entry.
The last part is the site's Internet address (in other words, the
e-mail address for someone who works for the Clinton Group would be
USER@CLINTON.COM (where USER is replaced with the person's login id)).
The second entry is for a person named Tom J. Clinton. Again, the entry
has a handle (TJC2). This entry also has two new items: Tom's e-mail
address, and his telephone number (btw, this is just an example -- the
e-mail address and telephone number listed above will not work).
Let's keep looking for the President. I can use an e-mail address as
a search keyword, so I type
and the following appears on my screen:
Gee ... that's odd. I know that president@whitehouse.com is the
correct e-mail address. What happened?
To add to the problem of "inaccurate" addresses that we discussed
a few minutes ago, most e-mail address databases are far from complete.
Heck, this whois directory does not even have an entry for ME !
Again, if you want to find someone's e-mail address, the best way to
get it is to ASK that person for their address!!
FINGER
"Finger is a handy little program which lets you find out more about
people on the Net -- and lets you tell others on the Net more about
yourself.
Finger uses the same concept as telnet or FTP, but it works with only
one file, called .plan (yes, with a period in front). This is a text
file an Internet user creates with a text editor in his home directory.
(If you local Internet service provider allows it), you can put your
phone number in there, tell a little bit about yourself, or write
almost anything at all." (3)
If you local Internet service provider allows you to use finger -- and
a lot don't, for reasons we will soon see -- all you need to do to
read someone else's plan is type
replacing [user@address] with the e-mail address of the person that you
want to finger.
For example, if I type
(my UNIX account address), the following appears on my screen:
Boring!
Let's finger someone else. I type
and the following appears on my screen:
Huh?? The story, as best as I can remember it, is that the people who
worked at the Computer Science department at Carnegie-Mellon University
in Pittsburgh were sick and tired of having to go down several flights
of stairs only to discover that their Coke machine was empty. So, they
hooked the Coke machine up to the Internet.
Using a finger command, they could tell how many Cokes were in the machine,
and they could even tell if the Cokes were cold or not (the M&M machine
came later).
The neat thing about this is that ANYONE with access to finger can finger
the CMU Coke machine and discover how many Cokes there are in this one
vending machine in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania :)
While this is funny -- and there are a lot of other neat things that you
can find using finger -- there is a problem. According to the Chronicle
of Higher Education
Many college and university computer system administrators are
responding to rising concerns over misuse of the Finger tool with
modifications that restrict the information users can glean, and
some have eliminated it altogether. Critics note the tool violates
privacy -- it provides information about where people are logging
on and when they're doing it -- and security -- crackers can use
it to obtain information that can help them break into computer
accounts ... (4)
Don't be shocked if you try to finger someone and it does not work.
If you site does not have a finger program, you can still finger someone
by sending an e-mail letter to
jfesler@netcom.com
with the command
in the SUBJECT LINE of your letter (NOTE: do NOT put the command in
the body of your letter), replacing [user@address] with the e-mail
address of the person that you want to finger.
You should receive a response about a day later.
You can also try to finger someone using telnet (but I have yet to get
this to work from here). If the person's address is user@site, telnet
to
[site] 79
replacing [site] with the site's address. Once connected, type the
username.
HOMEWORK:
- In a few minutes, I am going to send you a list of neat stuff
that you should check out. One of the things you should check
out is the "Special Internet Connections" list written by
Scott Yanoff. The list contains the addresses of SEVERAL
neat finger addresses.
COMMENTS
(1) BESIDES a squirrel!!!
Patrick Douglas Crispen The views expressed in this letter do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa.
ROADMAP: COPYRIGHT PATRICK CRISPEN 1994. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
THESE LESSONS ARE BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
BeOnTheNet inc.
+ Providers of Practical Internet Solutions
whois Clinton
Whois: whois Clinton
Clinton Cadillac (NET-C106755) C106755 198.249.102.0
Clinton Central School (AGCC-DOM) AGCC.COM
Clinton Group, Inc. (CLINTON-DOM) CLINTON.COM
Clinton High School (NET-CLINTONHS-NET) CLINTONHS-NET 192.239.138.0
Clinton, Tom J. (TJC2) tjclinton@PIPTRONIX.COM 416 289 1895
Bummer ... No "Bill."
Clinton, Tom J. (TJC2) tjclinton@PIPTRONIX.COM 416 289 1895
Whois president@whitehouse.gov
Whois president@whitehouse.gov
No match for mailbox "PRESIDENT@WHITEHOUSE.GOV"
finger [user@address]
finger pcrispe1@ua1ix.ua.edu
ua1ix.ua.edu
Login name: pcrispe1@ua1ix.ua.edu In real life: Patrick Crispen
Directory: /u/as/econ/pcrispe1 Shell: /bin/sh
On since Nov 09 06:27:38 on ttyp0 at ua1ix from ua1vm.ua.edu ...
No plan.
finger coke@cs.cmu.edu
L.GP.CMU.EDU
Login: coke Name: Drink Coke
Directory: /usr/coke Shell: /usr/local/bin/tcsh
Last login Wed Oct 12 14:27 (EDT) on ttyp1 from PTERO.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU
Mail came on Tue Nov 8 13:35, last read on Tue Nov 8 13:35
Plan:
Thu Sep 29 17:33:39 1994
M&M validity: 0 Coke validity: 0 (e.g. data interface is down)
Exact change required for coke machine.
M & M Buttons
/-----\
| | C: CCCCCCCCCCCC...........
| | C: CCCCCC...... D: CCCCCC......
| | C: CCCCCC...... D: CCCCCC......
| | C: CCCCCC...... D: CCCCCC......
\-----/ C: CCCCCC......
| S: CCCCCC......
| Key:
| 0 = warm; 9 = 90% cold; C = cold; . = empty
| Leftmost soda/pop will be dispensed next
---^---
#finger [user@address]
(2) This is a personal problem, and I promise to seek the necessary
professional counseling that I need (so PLEASE don't write me).
(3) Adapted from the "EFF's Guide to the Internet" and reprinted
by permission.
(4) Chronicle of Higher Education 7/13/94 A15, as reprinted in
Edupage 07.14.94
pcrispe1@ua1vm.ua.edu
The University of Alabama
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