Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 00:49:59 -0500 (CDT) From: Kevin Day <toasty@dragondata.com> To: mark@grondar.za (Mark Murray) Cc: green@FreeBSD.ORG (Brian F. Feldman), hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: a BSD identd Message-ID: <199907110549.AAA11611@celery.dragondata.com> In-Reply-To: <199907101712.TAA13461@gratis.grondar.za> from Mark Murray at "Jul 10, 1999 07:12:58 pm"
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> > Is it worth it to write an identd for FreeBSD? With one sysctl added, it's
> > trivial to implement. If an identd would be desired, then should I make a
> > separate one, or rewrite the current inetd's internal identd shim? I
> > don't see a reason for pidentd when we could have an identd built in by
> > me fixing inetd up, and it would all take up less space.
>
> There is the question - what for? identd is of questionable use at best.
>
> The best use of identd I have seen is crypted cookies that would allow
> an attackee to identify an attacker in a non-privacy-invasive manner.
> In 3 years of running this at an ISP, I have never seen it used in anger.
>
> Under normal circumstances (${BIGNUM} Wintendo boxes running IRC
> clients), the info given is completely useless.
>
Just to add a counter-point here, I run an ISP that offers shell accounts.
We get idiot customers using IRC for all sorts of nasty things at times, and
identd is the only method I have for knowing who did it when I get
complaints.
However, pidentd is rather buggy of late, and tends to freak out a lot. If
we could have an 'official' identd, I'd like it. :)
Kevin
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