finger

An Internet utility (or program) that lets you find out information about an Internet user who has an e-mail address, such as the person's real name and whether or not he or she is online at the present moment. This utility used to work only for identifying Unix or VAX users, but it can now finger someone on the World Wide Web.

"To finger someone" sounds weird, we know, but it is a technology used in all earnest. To do it, you need to have a finger program on your computer (or you can go to a finger gateway on the Web and enter the e-mail address). Note: It may be fun to try, but realize that some accounts are simply not "fingerable."

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