>>>The whois telnet server at rs.internic.net is
>>>history, though distributed whois is still available.
>>
>>I'm not sure which WHOIS server _you_ are talking about,
>
>Port 23 -- the CLI server that has for years been available at the
>standard telnet port.
>
>>but the normal
>>WHOIS server (port 43) run by Internic still seems to be alive and well
>>and answering queries as of five seconds ago.
>
>That's what I referred to as the distributed whois server -- which, yes,
>is still running (thank glub).
Hmm, either I'm confused here or you are. (And I'm necessarily
assuming it's you.) My experience is that the whois database and the
root DNS database are not in fact the same thing. I have seen a skew
problem between them that took months to correct. If you _really_ want
to know who someone's nameservers are, look at the NS records in the DNS.
Whois is (sometimes) useful for contact info, but I wouldn't trust it
beyond that.
-Mitch
