slightly off topic ... but identd is pretty insecure ... directly copied from the nmap man page ....
As noted by Dave Goldsmith in a 1996 Bugtraq post, the ident protocol (rfc 1413) allows for the disclosure of the username that owns any process connected via TCP, even if that process didn't initiate the conĀ nection. So you can, for example, connect to the http port and then use identd to find out whether the server is running as root. This can only be done with a full TCP connection to the target port (i.e. the -sT scanning option). When -I is used, the remote host's identd is queried for each open port found. Obviously this won't work if the host is not running identd. for some odd reason, I've noticed that when I tell oidentd to bind itself to port 113, it seem prevent this "problem". (Amazingly its still works for legit identd requests) Identd is pretty crappy, however major IRC networks like EFnet will require because less abuse comes from clients with identd. (unless you get lucky and run into an open I:Line server that doesn't need identd.) Sunny Dubey