Re: finger

[itojun%iijlab.net@localhost]

>What is the danger you see in allowing the 8-bit data?  If it is
>a printable character for the user running finger, I see no danger.
>Please answer that question, so I can understand better.

        you seem to assume that both ends agree about their idea about
        multibyte encoding.  that's not possible.  for instance, if fingerd
        side is using iso-8859-1 and finger side is using euc-jp (or some other
        multibyte encodings that use 2^7 bit set), euc-jp side can go crazy
        (if odd number of octets with 2^7 bit set are sent).

        what should really happen here is to introduce charset negotiation
        into finger protocol.  until such a protocol is proposed/standardized,
        fingerd side should limit itself to generate ASCII-only output.
        (finger side change *may* be okay, from "be liberal on what you receive
        and be conservatibe on what you send" principle)

        anyways, i really would like to see today's change backed out, until
        proper protocol extension is defined.

itojun