🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi, as Tom has mentioned, the CA domain information is not available
via "whois".  But see below.

I wonder if implementing "whois" would be worthwhile.  Personally I
would rather use a comprehensive distributed directory service.

Regards,
John Demco <CA-Registrar@CDNnet.CA>
CA domain registrar

====================================================
Information about the CA domain is available by electronic mail and by
anonymous FTP.  Included are lists of registered organizations, a copy
of each organization's registration, and an application form.

To retrieve information via anonymous FTP, establish a connection to
ftp.cdnnet.ca, log in with the username "anonymous", and specify your
e-mail address as the password.  When logged in, change to the
"ca-domain" directory with the following command:

        cd ca-domain

Individual files can then be retrieved using the "get" command:

        get <remote filename>

For example:

        get Index
        get Application-form
	get ca.bc.nanaimo.sd68

These files are mirrored on a number of other hosts; you can use
"archie" to find them.

To retrieve information via electronic mail, specify a line of the
following form:

        index ca-domain
or
        send ca-domain <filename> [<filename> ...]

in the subject line or body of an electronic mail message to the
CDNnet archive server. Send this message to:

        archive-server@relay.CDNnet.CA

or in X.400 format:

        S=archive-server; OU=relay; O=CDNnet; P=cdn; A=telecom.canada; c=CA;

Example:

        To: archive-server@relay.CDNnet.CA
        Subject: send ca-domain Introduction Application-form

In <BuuJ71.DBt@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> demco@cs.ubc.ca (John Demco) writes:
>Hi, as Tom has mentioned, the CA domain information is not available
>via "whois".  But see below.

Many organizations have an IP network number, which *should* be registered
with the NIC.  This is a starting point for me on my frequent search for
the answer to "Is Company X on the Internet?"

How long should we wait for an all-singing, all-dancing distributed
Internet directory service?  How much work is being obstructed now, how
many useful linkages not forming, because people can't find each other, and
worse, can't even tell whether an organization exists on the Internet or
not?

How much information would be in a Canadian WHOIS server?  I think that if
we took the .CA domain information and gopherized and indexed it we'd have
a pretty good start.  You could look up organizations by name, province, or
by some keyword in a fulltext search.  What do people think?  This would be
a pretty small project- an afternoon, say, to build a hundred lines of
Perl, and since it would use the information from John Demco's machine,
would be self-maintaining.
--
	Daniel MacKay				daniel@nstn.ns.ca
	NOC Manager, NSTN Operations Centre	902-494-NSTN
	Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada