pinky -l robert

Login name: robert                      In real life:  robert
Directory: /home/robert                 Shell:  /bin/bash

man pinky

PINKY(1)            User Commands           PINKY(1)

NAME
       pinky - lightweight finger

SYNOPSIS
       pinky [OPTION]... [USER]...
...

Sean Colbath
Feb 19, 1990, 9:39:31 PM
to
In response to a number of users who read my article re: the etymology of
the "finger" command, I send mail to Les Earnest, who, according to ARPA
RFC742, wrote the original finger command. Here is the reply I got,
reproduced with his permission. I think you may find it quite amusing and
enlightening.

>From L...@SAIL.Stanford.EDU Mon Feb 19 21:32:35 1990
Received: from cayuga.cs.rochester.edu by sol.cs.rochester.edu (4.0/q) id AA13568; Mon, 19 Feb 90 21:32:33 EST
Received: from Sail.Stanford.EDU by cayuga.cs.rochester.edu (5.59/q) id AA20402; Mon, 19 Feb 90 21:32:26 EST
Message-Id: <Kl$B...@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 19 Feb 90 1831 PST
From: Les Earnest <L...@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: re: Greetings...
To: col...@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU
Status: R

[In reply to message sent Mon, 19 Feb 90 16:02:17 EST.]

I'm glad that you are enjoying the C3 articles. I need to write another
one soon.

Here is a response to your conjectures, mostly regurgitated from an
article that I posted on Human-nets in 1985. Feel free to forward it to
alt.forklore.computers, or I can post it there if you prefer. I haven't
been reading that newsgroup, but a quick look indicates that maybe I
should.

Finger was named for the act of pointing. I recall that sometime after it
became popular I received a message from a system administrator who
thought that it should be renamed so that users would not have to use a
"dirty" word. I gave his request all the consideration that it deserved.

I created Finger around 1971 to meet a local need at the Stanford
Artifical Intelligence Lab. People generally worked long hours there,
often with unpredictable schedules. When you wanted to meet with some
group, it was important to know who was there and when the others would
likely reappear. It also was important to be able to locate potential
volleyball players when you wanted to play, Chinese food freaks when you
wanted to eat, and antisocial computer users when it appeared that
something strange was happening on the system.

The only tool then available for seeing who was running on our DEC-10
computer was a WHO program that showed IDs and terminal line numbers for
people who were logged in. There was no information available on people
who were not logged in. I frequently saw people running their fingers
down the WHO display saying things like "There's Don and that's Pattie but
I don't know when Tom was last seen." or "Who in hell is VVK and where
does line 63 go?"

I wrote Finger and developed the supporting database to provide this
information in traditional human terms -- real names and places. Because
I preferred to talk face to face rather than through the computer or
telephone, I put in the feature that tells how long the terminal had been
idle, so that I could assess the likelihood that I would find them there
if I walked down the hall.

The program was an instant hit. Some people asked for the Plan file
feature so that they could explain their absence or how they could be
reached at odd times, so I added it. I found it interesting that this
feature evolved into a forum for social commentary and amusing
observations.

Finger was picked up by a number of other groups with DEC-10 computers
that were connected to Arpanet -- software flowed in all directions around
the net in those days. It later migrated to Un*x, probably via U.C.
Berkeley. Somewhere along the line the idea arose to provide a network
Finger service. I don't remember who suggested that but it seemed like a
good idea at the time so I stuck it in. Some other anxious people wanted
to be able to verify that their mail was delivered to specific addressees,
so the Mail feature was also added.

While I was somewhat surprised by the popularity of Finger, it has not
been as successful as an earlier program that I invented -- the spelling
checker. It too was created to fill a personal need that many others
apparently share. We didn't think about commercial development and
software protection in those days, but if we had we probably could have
made something out of it. On the other hand, I enjoyed the comradery
of those gentler times and have no regrets.

-Les Earnest (L...@Sail.Stanford.edu)

--
Sean Colbath
col...@cs.rochester.edu ...uunet!rochester!colbath
"And now for something completely different..."

Obsoleted by: 1288, 1196, 1194                                   UNKNOWN

NWG/RFC# 742                                  KLH 30-Dec-77 08:31  42758
Network Working Group                                     K. Harrenstien
Request for Comments: 742                                         SRI-KL
NIC: 42758                                              30 December 1977

                              NAME/FINGER

Introduction

   This note describes the Name/Finger protocol.  This is a simple
   protocol which provides an interface to the Name and Finger programs
   at several network sites.  These programs return a friendly,
   human-oriented status report on either the system at the moment or a
   particular person in depth.  Currently only the SAIL (SU-AI), SRI
   (SRI-(KA/KL)), and ITS (MIT-(AI/ML/MC/DMS)) sites support this
   protocol, but there are other systems with similar programs that
   could easily be made servers; there is no required format and the
   protocol consists mostly of specifying a single "command line".

To use via the network:

   ICP to socket 117 (octal, 79. decimal) and establish two 8-bit
   connections.

   Send a single "command line", ending with <CRLF>.

   Receive information which will vary depending on the above line and
   the particular system.  The server closes its connections as soon as
   this output is finished.
...

finger robert@157.240.192.0

Login: robert         			Name: robert
Directory: /home/robert             	Shell: /bin/bash
On since Sun Feb  4 22:00 (EST) on :0 from :0 (messages off)
Mail last read Fri Feb  2 23:02 2024 (EST)
PGP key:
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

mQGNBGW+pq8BDADSnwcmQYkQuu0H3KFsgzDxPay+epJfbwVqy1EQ/yA2kWKRtc/Y
yLOl7QZD4EKaAwyIxPRNbdSdJYGU2/AvkgG0egv4GYINOZWG5dBFZUtrGQbqH6gC
d3L2IZyAOu/1tO8MRvGVx7ol/MGC2Nf5kDCyZgfr8UsX0QVUwqDYsSbpJ/xWe7ae
/2A3zjK8zpXlF4NwRu12jByJwG+o
=JV/r
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Project:
My current project is to raise awareness about how terrible the opposing
political party is.  They're basically a crime family and they should all
be in JAIL!
Plan:
My plan is to start my own drop-shipping business and then make
money selling courses on YouTube about how to build a successful
drop-shipping business.

man getpwnam

...
DESCRIPTION
       The  getpwnam()  function  returns  a  pointer  to a structure containing
       the broken-out fields of the record in the password database (e.g., the
       local password file /etc/passwd, NIS, and LDAP) that matches the username
       name.
...