Finger: the 1971 social network that never died
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
Finger, a 1971 protocol for sharing .plan files, persists as a minimalist social network.
Finger, designed at Stanford in 1971 by Les Earnest, lets anyone publish a .plan text file via port 79. It predates modern social networks by decades and saw famous use by John Carmack for development updates. After the Morris worm exploited fingerd in 1988, most administrators disabled it, but it survives in Unix and Windows. Modern implementations like Happy Net Box, Finger.Farm, and plan.cat offer safer access. The article includes a comparison table with RSS, Gemini, and Gopher, and instructions for setting up a finger daemon.
The protocol is extremely simple: a TCP connection to port 79, sending a username or blank line, receiving plain text. It has no encryption, likes, or discovery, but its minimalism appeals to those seeking ownership of their online presence.
What commenters are saying
Commenters share fond memories of using Finger in the 1990s, particularly for following game developers like John Carmack and for social stalking at universities. Some recall automated pullers feeding sites like PlanetQuake. A split emerges: several note security issues (the Morris worm, later flaws) that led to its banning in corporate environments, while others celebrate its simplicity and revival projects like plan.cat and Lookit. One commenter highlights that WebFinger (RFC 7033) is a modern HTTP-based evolution. A minority suspects AI assistance in the article's writing, citing stylistic patterns.