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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: NSI Bulletin 098-010 | Update on Whois
The WHOIS database has a long history traced back through several generations of managers to the early days of ARPA, DCA, IANA, SRI. I don't think anyone really has clear title to claim 'ownership' of the data. The database has been transfered several times already from one contractor to the next. SRI transfered it to GSI, and then to NSI. The database has been split several times. Such as when .MIL was split off, when .GOV was split off, when ARIN was split off. Usually these splits have ended up screwing up the NICHANDLES of those ancient individuals on the net. Giving NSI the benefit of the doubt, I assume NSI will transfer the database to whatever the successor organization (or organizations) is, as NSI has previous done with the .GOV data, and NET-BLK data. As far as the only supported interfaces for retrieving the data from NSI being the WHOIS port and the anonymous FTP zone files, if you look at it in the best light, I would refer back to the cooperative agreement with NSF. As much as I dislike SPAM, I do not think concern about the use of the data for marketing purposes is a good justification for NSI to unilaterally block individuals from accessing the WHOIS data. I would be interested in knowing why a couple of sites have found the need to query the WHOIS data so heavily. And once we knew their need, perhaps finding a better solution. But the NSF cooperative agreement didn't really say much about finding new ways to efficiently distribute the WHOIS database. But, as folks around the beltway like to say, its not NSI's bailiwick. If NSI is looking for a nice off-site storage facility to store a backup of the database in case something happens on the east coast (see http://nic.ddn.mil/DNS/root-server.html) I know of a nice centrally located facility :-) -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation
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