Finding people on the network

[Jonathan I. Kamens]

In article <1991Apr10.034246.14408 at agate.berkeley.edu>, raymond at cavebear.berkeley.edu (Raymond Yee) writes:
|> 1) Is there a way to find the email address of a person on a network
|> if you know his name and organization (eg, university)?  I know that
|> finger will work if you have the host also.

  In the general case, no, there isn't.  If you're looking for somebody at a
college or university, you can check the college/university email directory
maintained by mkant at glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu.  That directory tells what the mail
addresses of many schools are, and (when available) how you can look for
people at those sites.  I have put it in the anonymous ftp file
/pub/usenet/soc.college/Student_Email_Addresses on pit-manager.mit.edu
(18.72.1.58); if you don't have anonymous ftp access, you can get it by
sending a message to "mail-server at pit-manager.mit.edu" with the subject "send
usenet/soc.college/Student_Email_Addresses".

  Alternatively, if you know the name of *any* host that accepts mail at the
organization, you might be able to send mail to "postmaster" at that host and
ask them if they can find out the address you're looking for.  Don't do this
unless you really have to, though, because postmasters generally are swamped
with junk mail and tend to be a bit hostile to requests of this sort (although
they'll probably answer eventually).

|> 2) Is there a way to get the list of all the login names on a given host.
|> I know that one machine I have access to, there is the command:
|>      finger -a
|> On other machines, there is no corresponding option.

  No, not on a remote host.  Finger -a doesn't even work on my site, which is
a 4.3BSD site.

|> 3) Which users do the whois command bring up?  How do they register to
|> be in that listing?

  Anybody who registers with the NIC, assuming that "whois" at your site
checks with the NIC by default (which it does on most systems).  To find out
how to register with the NIC, send mail to "service at nic.ddn.mil" with subject
and body "help".

-- 
Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				11 Ashford Terrace
jik at Athena.MIT.EDU				Allston, MA  02134
Office: 617-253-8085			      Home: 617-782-0710