Predraft 1 for finger URL scheme

I would like to propose a new URL scheme: "finger" (RFC1288). I don't have
a use for this URL myself, but people on the Net are starting to use finger
URLs to point to finger servers that have constantly updated information,
such as about the recent Kobe earthquake. Such URLs have recently appeared
in a very popular Macintosh newsletter (TidBITS) and will probably start
appearing in other places as more finger info servers are put up.

There seems to be two reasonable models for the syntax:

finger:user@host          similar to "mailto"
finger://user@host      from RFC1738 section 3.1

(The one URL-enabled finger client I know of on the Macintosh will accept
either form, and I haven't found any finger clients on the PC that claim to
be URL-enabled.)

I'm sure both syntaxes are about equally useful and easy for content
creators to conform to.

So, how about a straw vote: which syntax seems "better" given the
guidelines of RFC1738?

Also, I couldn't see anything with respect to security of the URL that
wasn't covered in RFC1288, section 3. However, I'm not the security expert
around here. :-) Does anyone have any thoughts on additional security
issues? Should I repeat section 3.3 (client security) in the I-D or simply
refer to it?

Unless I'm mistaken, this will be a very short I-D...

Received on Wednesday, 8 February 1995 22:56:42 UTC