FAQ: How to find people's E-mail addresses
From: dalamb@qucis.queensu.ca (David Alex Lamb)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,soc.net-people,news.announce.newusers,news.newusers.questions,comp.answers,soc.answers,news.answers
Subject: FAQ: How to find people's E-mail addresses
Supersedes: <finding_865157405@qucis.QueensU.CA>
Followup-To: poster
Date: 6 Jul 1997 09:28:27 GMT
Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Expires: 19 Aug 1997 09:30:05 GMT
Message-ID: <finding_868181405@qucis.QueensU.CA>
Archive-name: finding-addresses
Version: $Id: finding.n,v 2.16 1997/06/17 15:56:35 dalamb Exp dalamb $
Copyright 1991,1992,1993,1994 Jonathan I. Kamens
Copyright 1994,1995,1996,1997 David Alex Lamb.
See end of file for copying permissions.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about finding e-mail addresses. This FAQ is
available on the World-Wide Web at
<URL:http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/email/finding.html>
This FAQ is also available in French at
<URL:http://web.fdn.fr/fdn/doc-misc/find-e-mail-add/>
******************************************************************************
* Introduction *
******************************************************************************
A question which appears frequently on the Usenet is, "I know someone's
name, and I think they might have an electronic mail address somewhere. How
can I find it?"
There are many different techniques for doing this. Several of them are
discussed below. Your best bet is to try the pertinent methods in this
posting in the order in which they are listed (well, sort of; at the very
least, please try all the pertinent methods which do not involve posting
queries to soc.net-people before resorting to that).
I've listed "Direct contact" near the end of this list because, for some
reason, people seem to be reluctant to call people on the telephone or write
them a paper-mail letter asking what their E-mail address is, as long as there
is even a remote chance that it might be found without asking. This attitude
is somewhat counterproductive, since in most cases, it is much easier to get
someone's E-mail address by asking them than it is by following the other
methods outlined below. Furthermore, even if you do manage to find an E-mail
address using one of the on-line methods described below, it is not guaranteed
that the person at the other end of the line checks that address regularly or
even that it is the correct address.
Therefore, if you do have a telephone number that isn't too expensive to
call, or if you have a paper-mail address and aren't in too much of a hurry,
you can probably save yourself a lot of trouble by skipping all of the on-line
methods listed below and going directly to "Direct contact."
******************************************************************************
* Avoid public distribution of individuals' addresses *
******************************************************************************
It is considered rude to widely distribute (e.g., in a Usenet posting) a
person's E-mail address without his/her prior consent, even if the address is
publicly available using one of the techniques described below or some other
technique.
It might seem that having one's E-mail address listed in a publicly
accessible database is equivalent to distributing it, but this is not the case
in practice, for three primary reasons:
* Some people may not be aware that their addresses are available for others
to locate. For example, the majority of Usenet posters are unaware of the
database of Usenet E-mail addresses mentioned below.
* When some effort is required to locate a person's address (e.g., using the
techniques described below), only people who have a specific reason to
send mail to him/her will go to the trouble. However, if the address is
mentioned in a Usenet posting read by thousands of people, no effort is
required to obtain it, and many more people will send him/her mail. Most
people with E-mail addresses are not accustomed to receiving E-mail from
strangers or large amounts of E-mail, and they may not be happy if they
do.
* As unwanted E-mail becomes more common, people will start to remove their
addresses from public databases, which means that it will become more
difficult to find people's addresses for legitimate reasons.
In summary, if you want to advertise someone's E-mail address, get his/her
permission before you do it. Besides, if you're going to advertise an
address, it's a good idea to make sure it works first, and writing to it for
permission is a good way to do that.
******************************************************************************
* Web Searches *
******************************************************************************
o E-mail and phone directories Changed: Sat Dec 21 1996
Several organizations let you search for addresses by filling in and
submitting a form from your Web browser. In many cases these services
populated their databases by scanning for addresses in USENET news postings.
* 555-1212.com at <URL:http://www.555-1212.com/> is an on-line directory
of telephone numbers, compiled from the three major telephone
information vendors. Unlike many other search engines, it has few
graphics to slow you down. It provides several other directory services
listed at <URL:http://www.555-1212.com/welcome.html> as well.
* WhoWhere? at <URL:http://www.whowhere.com/> is an online directory of
contact information on individuals and organizations. Its search engine
can handle misspelled or incomplete names.
* Four11 at <URL:http://www.four11.com/> is a commercial online directory
service with over 6.5 million listings (as of June 1996) All Internet
users are provided free basic access, which includes a free listing and
free searching. You can also access the service by sending mail to
info@four11.com.
* POPULUS at <URL:http://www.populus.net> asks people register with them,
providing personal information such as interests, college attended, and
date of birth, then lets people search on this information.
* Internet Address Finder at <URL:http://www.iaf.net/> has about 4.5
million listings as of July 1996.
* Switchboard at <URL:http://www.switchboard.com/> is a Web-based
telephone directory; its names are compiled from published white pages
directories and other publicly-available sources. If you register a
password with Switchboard, you can add additional information to your
listing, including your email address. You can arrange to hide your
email address (or other parts of your listing), while still allowing
people to email you a brief note via Switchboard.
* Phonebooke at <URL:http://www.phonebooke.com/> lets you search for
people in the USA by name or phone number, and provides forms to
interface with many other search engines, including Four11, the AT&T
Internet directory, NYNEX' Big Yellow, and 555-1212.com.
* Bigfoot at <URL:http://www.bigfoot.com/> has about 100 million white
pages listings and 8 million e-mail listings as of December 1996. The
company focuses on value-added services for e-mail users, complementing
those of ISPs.
o Altavista Created: Fri Jul 5 1996
Digital's Altavista search engine at <URL:http://www.altavista.digital.com>
indexes Web pages and Usenet postings. If you suspect the person you are
looking for has created a web page or posted to Usenet, you may be able to
find them this way.
o National white pages Changed: Thu Dec 12 1996
There are a few internet white pages based on nationality:
* Belgium at <URL:http://www.advalvas.be/default.html>.
* Brazil at <URL:http://www.supermail.com.br/>.
* Finland at <URL:http://www.kotka.fi/>.
* Germany at <URL:http://www.suchen.de/>.
* Germany at <URL:http://www.finden.de/>.
* Israel at <URL:http://www.ibm.net.il/WebPh>.
* Italy at <URL:http://www.ats.it/wpages/>.
* Sweden at <URL:http://directory.ausys.se/ecatalog/search.htm>.
* Switzerland at <URL:http://www.swissinfo.ch/email/>.
o lookup.com Changed: Fri Jul 5 1996
LookUP! at <URL:http://www.lookup.com/> merged with Four11 in the spring of
1996.
******************************************************************************
* Gopher and PH *
******************************************************************************
Gopher is an Internet-wide distributed document retrieval service. If your
site has a gopher client program, you can use it to access gopher servers
at other sites; domain X.edu might have a gopher server gopher.X.edu, but
there's no guarantee. One kind of document sites often place under gopher
is their phonebook; many phonebooks are managed through a system
called
PH, documented at <URL:http://www.amherst.edu/~atstarr/computers/ph.html>.
WebPH at <URL:http://www.middlebury.edu/~its/Software/WebPh/> is a World-
Wide Web interface PH. If a site you are interested has installed it, you can
look up people from that site by filling in a query form. Unfortunately,
there is no convention for how to guess where to find the WebPH or PH server
given the site name.
Most Gopher servers have pointers to a complete list of ph servers used by
all sorts of organizations. You can enter various criteria, in an easy-to-use
manner, and it will return the info that you didn't give (if, of course, there
are no more than 20 entries that match. This is to prevent people getting
mailing lists via the ph servers.)
Many of the on-line methods for finding addresses documented below are
easily accessible, with a consistent user interface, from the Internet Gopher
burrow at the University of Minnesota. If you are on the Internet, you may
want to try using Gopher to do your searching before going directly to any of
the methods described below. Ask someone at your site to find out if Gopher
clients are installed there. Or, to find out how to use it and/or install it
yourself, see the comp.infosystems.gopher FAQ posting at
<URL:gopher://mudhoney.micro.umn.edu:70/00/Gopher.FAQ>.
******************************************************************************
* Other Techniques *
******************************************************************************
o College Email Addresses
The College Email FAQ at
<URL:http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/email/college.html> describes the
account and E-mail address policies for graduate and undergraduate students
at many universities and colleges. If you are looking for a
university/college student, check those postings for the university or
college in question and follow their instructions for finding out more.
This FAQ is also posted regularly to soc.college as a collection of postings
whose subjects start with "College Email Addresses." If the postings have
expired at your site or has not been posted recently, you can get a copy of
them using the instructions below(in the "Useful Usenet postings" section).
If the university has a PH (phonebook) server, it may be listed in the
Colleges and Universities PH server directory at
<URL:http://home.cdsnet.net/~zachbo/others.html>.
o Usenet-addresses server
If you think that your target may be on the Usenet and may have posted a
message to the Usenet at some point in the past, you might be able to find
his/her address in the Usenet address database on the machine rtfm.mit.edu.
To query the database, send an E-mail message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
with "send usenet-addresses/name" in the body of the message. The "name"
should be one or more space-separated words for which you want to search;
since the search is fuzzy (i.e., all of the words you specify do not have to
match), you should list all of the words you think might appear in the
address, including (for example) first and last name, possible username, and
possible components of the host name (e.g. "mit" for a person who you think
is at MIT). The case and order of the words you list are ignored.
Note that multiple requests can appear (on separate lines) in mail to the
mail server, but each request will be answered in a separate message.
In many cases, you will get a list of quite a few matching addresses, and
you will have to go through it looking for ones that may be the one you're
looking for. However, the mail server will return a maximum of only 40
matches.
Note that the usenet-addresses database is accessible via WAIS (in fact, the
script that does mail server searches is actually just a front-end to a WAIS
database) on two different hosts: rtfm.mit.edu and cedar.cic.net. In both
cases, the database is called "usenet-addresses" and is on port 210. Note
that the version on rtfm is slightly more up-to-date with respect to the
master address list than the version on cedar. If you don't know what WAIS
is, then don't worry about this paragraph; if you're curious, see the
"comp.infosystems.wais" newsgroup.
For more details about how to use the database, send the command "send
usenet-addresses/help".
o Inter-Network Mail Guide
If you know which network/service your target has an account on (e.g.
CompuServe, Fidonet), then the "Inter-Network Mail Guide" posting in
comp.mail.misc *may* be able to provide you with some help, although it
probably will not be particularly helpful unless you have some sort of
address to start with (a small number of networks use full names as
addresses, and the posting mentions when this is the case, but it doesn't
apply in very many cases).
See the instructions below for getting a copy of this posting if it isn't
available in comp.mail.misc at your site.
o whois/nicname Changed: Tue Jul 4 1995
Whois is the internet user name directory service. Do
whois help
or
nicname -h
to get a help message. The whois and nicname programs will check the
database maintained at rs.internic.net (or nic.ddn.mil for U.S. military
sites) for the given names. For example,
nicname <name>
or
whois <name>
or
whois -h <host> <names>
where <host> is some site with a whois server. This is only useful for
people listed in the database. Many regional networks and some universities
maintain their own NICs.
You can also get some of this information by telneting to rs.internic.net
and running whois and host there, or to nic.ddn.mil if you are looking for
U.S. military personnel. Alternatively, you can issue a single command to
the whois.internic.net server by typing "telnet whois.internic.net whois" in
order to connect to it and then typing the command and hitting return; the
"help" command will return several screens full of text, so if you need
help, you should use a utility such as "tee" or "script" to capture the help
message and save it for future reference.
If you do not have Internet access, you can send mail to
whois@whois.internic.net to query the "whois" database; send a message with
"help" in the body to find out more information.
Note, furthermore, that some sites run local "whois" databases to provide
information about people inside their organizations. The only way to find
out if your site runs such a database is to ask someone locally about it
(see "Get more help locally" below), and the only way to find out about such
databases at other sites (assuming, of course, that those databases are not
mentioned in any of the other sources listed in this document) is to contact
responsible individuals at those sites and ask (see "Finding a host name and
asking someone there for help" below).
o Other whois databases
Quite a few other sites also run "whois" databases that can be connected to
over the Internet using the whois protocol (using either the "whois" program
or "telnet hostname whois" as described in the previous section). Some of
those sites are listed here, and others are listed in a separate list,
described in more detail below.
The Ohio State University runs a "whois" database (on the machine "osu.edu")
that has all of the faculty, staff, and students listed. It responds to
"whois" queries in the normal fashion, or you can just send mail to
firstname.lastname@osu.edu and it will try to deliver e-mail if the person
has registered an e-mail address. You can also telnet to osu.edu and look-
up a person. If you are unsure of the spelling this is a good way, as it
does a soundex type search so exact matches are not necessary. No password
is necessary.
RIPE (a cooperative group of several European Internet providers) runs a
"whois" database, with RIPE information, on "whois.ripe.net"; it is a
European counterpart to "whois.internic.net".
Matt H. Power of MIT <mhpower@athena.mit.edu> has compiled and maintains an
extensive list of sites that run "whois" servers. The file can be retrieved
via anonymous ftp from /pub/whois/whois-servers.list on sipb.mit.edu.
In addition to E-mail addresses for individuals, "whois" servers often also
contain contact information about domains. For example, asking
whois.internic.net's server for information about "mit.edu" would tell you
to look up "mit-dom" in order to get information about MIT's domain, and
doing that would give you contact information about the people responsible
for administrating that domain, including the handles of those individuals,
which you can then look up to get still more information about them.
o Other directory services
There are several other directory services you may be able to use to search
for your target.
The person you are searching for may be using Pobox.com at
<URL:http://pobox.com/pobox/>, which provides permanent email forwarding
addresses You submit to a searchable database your real name and some
biographical information; you receive short, memorable email aliases at
pobox.com that forward to your current real mailbox. Whatever your real
address is, you can be found at and mailed through pobox.com. Pobox.com is
growing very quickly and has amassed a substantial database. To sign up or
find a subscriber, use the Web address or send mail to info@pobox.com
Many Bitnet sites have name servers that can be queried in one way or
another. To get a list of them with documentation, send a mail message to
listserv@bitnic.bitnet (a.k.a listserv@bitnic.educom.edu) with the command
"send bitnet servers" in the body of the message.
The IBM Corporate Internet Gateway provides a directory of users (which I
believe contains only IBM employees, although I'm not certain) that is
available to anyone who can send E-mail to it. If your target works for IBM
(or you suspect s/he does), then this might be useful to you.
To use it, send mail to nic@vnet.ibm.com with the command "whois lastname,
firstname" in the subject or body of the message. If you are unsure of the
spelling of the last name, use an asterisk (*) to indicate that the last
name should be treated as a prefix, rather than a complete name. The first
name is always treated as a prefix. For example, "whois Smith*, R" would
return all people with a last name starting with "Smith" and a first name
starting with "R", while "whois Smith, R" would return only those people
with exactly the last name "Smith" and a first name starting with "R".
Users of the directory are limited to 25 name searches per day. Each name
that results is counted as a separate name search. For example, a single
"whois Smith, R" that found Rodger Smith, Robert Smith, and Reginald Smith
would count as three name searches. Multiple requests may be made in a
single note provided that the number of names found does not exceed the
daily limit of 25.
RPI runs a white pages server for people interested in the field of
communications. To find out how to use it, send mail to
comserve@rpitsvm.bitnet (or comserve@vm.its.rpi.edu) with "help" in the body
of the message.
BITNIC (the BITNET Network Information Center) runs a name server of more
general interest. To find out how to use it, send mail to
netserv@bitnic.bitnet (again, netserv@bitnic.educom.edu can also be used)
with "help" in the body of the message.
There is an X.500 white pages service run by UNINETT. It is accessible by
sending mail to the address Directory@UNINETT.NO (send a message with "help"
in the subject or body to get more information). Furthermore, there is
software for UNIX available for use as a convenient interface to the
service. It is available for anonymous ftp in
~ftp/directory/directory.tar.Z on the machine nac.no. Finally, if the
administrator of your site registers your organization with UNINETT
(instructions about doing so are available with the software just
mentioned), people from your site can then register in the database so that
other people can look them up in it.
KPN Research (formerly PTT Research) in the Netherlands runs a server that
you can use to look up addresses for its employees. If you know someone who
may work there, you can find out how to use the server by sending a mail
message to whois@research.kpn.com with "help" in the body of the message.
Note that this is not a "complete" whois site; it just supports limited mail
server queries.
AT&T Bell Labs runs a mailer on the host "att.com" that can get mail to
about 400 employees in the Research Area of Bell Labs using their names as
addresses. You can send mail to "lastname@att.com" or to
"initials.lastname@att.com", where "initials" consists of one or more
initials separated by dots. If the name is ambiguous, you will get a bounce
message indicating several possible matches, and the appropriate address to
use for each.
Tim Pozar has set up a WAIS server that contains the FidoNet email addresses
of Sysops of FidoNet BBSs. You can access it by connecting to the
"nodelist" WAIS database on port 210 of kumr.lns.com; use the name(s) for
which you wish to search as your search keywords. See above for more
information about WAIS.
PSI runs a X.500 directory server, accessible by sending mail to
whitepages@wp.psi.com.
In Australia, there are a number of methods you can use to find someone
connected to AARNet.
* There is an X.500 white pages service, accessible via a public access
account on wp.adelaide.edu.au. To use it, log in as "fred" and select a
user agent to run ("de" is probably the easiest). You can also send
queries by mail to whitepages@wp.adelaide.edu.au (sending the query
"help" will return instructions).
* There is a netfind access point (see below) on Archie.AU.
* A number of sites provide information via finger and whois.
Information about hosts in the "ca" Internet domain (i.e., hosts in Canada)
Is accessible via anonymous ftp to ftp.CDNnet.CA, or by mail to archive-
server@relay.CDNnet.CA. You can get site domain names and host names, as
well as the names and addresses of contact people for individual sites. For
more information, retrieve the file /ca-domain/Introduction via anonymous
ftp, or send a mail message to the mail server with "send ca-domain
Introduction" in it. The information in this archive is also available via
the Gopher service at <URL:gopher://nstn.ns.ca>.
o Finding a host name and asking someone there for help
If you know the organization, company, or whatever at which your target's
account is likely to be located, then you might be able to get your hands on
the host name of a machine at that location. Once you've done that, you can
usually write to someone responsible for E-mail support at the site and ask
for help finding the address you are seeking. See the section on below.
Once you've got a host name and the person to contact, you need to figure
out how to get the mail there, if it's on a network you don't know how to
reach. See the "Inter-Network Mail Guide" posting referenced above if you
need help with that.
If you do go this route, make sure you provide as much information as you
can about the person whose address you are seeking; remember that the more
detailed (and polite!) you are, the more likely it is that the person you
are contacting will be able to help you. Remember, too, that the person you
are contacting is probably very busy, and responding to requests like yours
is probably not one of his/her highest priorities, so be patient.
o Using 'finger' Changed: Mon Sep 2 1996
Finger is a user information lookup program. If you've found a potential
host name for your target using one of the other methods described here, and
if you have direct access to the Internet, then you may be able to use the
"finger" program/protocol to look up your target at a remote site. To
finger someone at another site, you generally type "finger name@host".
Andrew Starr maintains the Finger FAQ at
<URL:http://www.amherst.edu/~atstarr/computers/finger.html>. Some sites
provide Web-based interfaces to finger, such as Middlebury College at
<URL:http://www.middlebury.edu/~otisg/cgi/HyperFinger.cgi>.
o Netfind
Netfind is a "white pages" service that allows you to query one service and
have it search several other address databases of various sorts for
addresses matching your query. It is a program for SunOS workstations and
requires your computer to be directly connected to the Internet. The source
code is available by anonymous FTP from ftp.cs.colorado.edu, in
pub/cs/distribs/netfind.
People without a Sun on which to run Netfind on can telnet to any of the
following Netfind servers and log in as "netfind" (with no password):
archie.au AARNet, Melbourne, Australia
bruno.cs.colorado.edu University of Colorado, Boulder
dino.conicit.ve Nat. Council for Techn. & Scien.
Research Venezuela
ds.internic.net InterNIC Directory and DB Services,
S. Plainfield, NJ
lincoln.technet.sg Technet Unit, Singapore
macs.ee.mcgill.ca McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
malloco.ing.puc.cl Catholic University of Chile, Santiago
monolith.cc.ic.ac.uk Imperial College, London, England
mudhoney.micro.umn.edu University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
netfind.oc.com OpenConnect Systems, Dallas, Texas
netfind.vslib.cz Liberec University of Technology,
Czech Republic
nic.nm.kr Korea Network Information Center, Taejon, Korea
nic.uakom.sk Academy of Sciences, Banska Bystrica, Slovakia
redmont.cis.uab.edu University of Alabama at Birmingham
There is a mailing list where new releases of netfind will be announced; you
can subscribe by sending mail to netfind-users-request@cs.colorado.edu.
Netfind was developed by Mike Schwartz <schwartz@cs.colorado.edu> and Panos
Tsirigotis <panos@cs.colorado.edu>.
o Knowbot Information Service
The "Knowbot Information Service" (KIS) is another white pages service.
Two hosts running KIS servers are info.cnri.reston.va.us and
regulus.cs.bucknell.edu. Either can be reached on the Internet via telnet
at port 185 (e.g. "telnet info.cnri.reston.va.us 185"), or via electronic
mail (kis@cnri.reston.va.us or netaddress@regulus.cs.bucknell.edu). For
more information about Knowbot, use the "man" command after connecting via
telnet or in the body of your E-mail message. In addition,
info.cnri.reston.va.us' KIS server can be reached using the Internet "whois"
protocol described above.
o Searching LISTSERV mailing lists Changed: Tue Jul 4 1995
Many sites around the network are running the VM/CMS LISTSERV package for
managing mailing lists. If you have some reason to believe that a
particular user may be a member of a mailing list on a LISTSERV site, you
can ask that LISTSERV to send you a membership list and search it for your
target.
To do this, send mail to listserv@host (if "host" is a BITNET host, try
using listserv@host.bitnet; if that doesn't work, you'll have to ask someone
at your site how to send mail to BITNET hosts). In the body of your
message, include the command "review list-name", where "list-name" is the
name of the mailing list you wish to search.
Alternatively, sending mail to the server with the line
WHOIS <name>
may catch the person. For example, listserv@buacca.bu.edu. This is an
unlikely option. It also does not work with all listserv implementations.
If you don't know what LISTSERV is and dont' know of any LISTSERV sites or
mailing lists, then this technique probably isn't worth bothering with.
o Direct contact
If you have a paper mail address or telephone number for your target, call
them or write to them and ask for an E-mail address.
In that case, you might encounter the somewhat common situation where your
target knows s/he has an E-mail address, but s/he doesn't know what it is.
If this happens to you, then give him/her your E-mail address and ask
him/her to send you mail (and if s/he can't figure out how, tell him/her to
get someone at his/her site to help). The odds are that when you get
his/her message, it'll contain a valid return address in it.
o Get more help locally
Often, the postmaster at your site (or whomever is responsible at your site
for answering mail-related questions) has a large amount of knowledge that
will help him/her to help you find the answer to your question. If you have
been unable to find the answer for yourself, check with people locally and
see if one of them can help you out.
o postmaster Changed: Thu Jul 1 1993
Most sites have an individual responsible for network and mail operations at
the site, usually with the userid of 'postmaster'. These people are usually
very busy, so before bothering one of them, try telephoning the person you
are trying to reach. Long distance is expensive for you, but less
expensive, globally, than the postmaster's time. The one reasonable
exception is if you're sending mail and getting messages in response that
suggest some sort of mail system problem; you might report the problem to
postmaster at your own site, who may in turn contact postmaster at the
destination site.
Many postmasters will refuse to answer questions about user identification,
for reasons of privacy, though they may be willing to forward *your* address
so your intended recipient can write to you.
o The last resort -- soc.net-people
If all the methods above have failed, you can consider posting a message to
soc.net-people asking for help locating your target. Before doing so,
however, you should read the "Tips on using soc.net-people" posting in that
newsgroup. If it has expired, you can get a copy using the instructions
below (note that the name in the instructions below may change when a new
version with a new date is posted, so you may need to ask for an index of
the soc.net-people archive to find out the name of the most recent version).
Note that this is listed as THE last resort, to be tried even later than
using a telephone number or paper mail address. Any posting to the Usenet
uses the resources of the sites on the Usenet and of the networks that carry
it; certainly, the total cost of transporting a Usenet message is more than
the cost of a stamp or a short phone call. Since the benefit gained is to
you and not to the Usenet as a whole, you should avoid posting if you
possibly can.
******************************************************************************
* Finding Host Names *
******************************************************************************
o Whois
The NIC "whois" database mentioned above contains site and organization
information as well as information about individuals. Organization entries
in the NIC database will usually list an administrative, technical and/or
zone contact person, with his/her address, to whom you can write. You can
also write to "postmaster" at almost any Internet host to get in touch with
someone responsible for E-mail.
o U. Texas Network Directory
The University of Texas publishes a network directory. Although it hasn't
been updated in a few years, it still provides a useful list of many site
names. It is available for anonymous ftp from several different locations,
including /net.directory/1988.netbook on emx.utexas.edu. It is BIG, so you
might not have room to store it locally, unless you ask someone in charge to
set up some space for it. You should NOT transfer it to /tmp every time you
need it, or something like that; that's a horrible waste of network
bandwidth. Contact people are usually listed in the site entries in the net
directory, but you might want to try "postmaster" first. This directory is
superseded by the book "The user's directory of computer networks," whose
bibliography information is provided in the section below. Of course, you
have to pay for the book, and you can't grep dead trees, but it's probably
more up-to-date than the University of Texas directory.
o UUCP maps Changed: Tue Jul 4 1995
The UUCP maps are posted in the comp.mail.maps newsgroup. See the posting
"UUCP map for README" in that directory for more information. You can grep
in the news spool or use your news reader's search facilities to search for
a particular string (e.g. an organization name) in the comp.mail.maps
postings. Each UUCP map entry lists the contact person for the entry. You
can also search the UUCP maps by connecting to the "uumap" WAIS database on
port 210 of wais.cic.net. For more information about WAIS, see above.
o Netinfo
You can also search UUCP maps using the University of California at
Berkeley's Netinfo service (which also supports other services, such as
looking up IP addresses for hosts on the Internet). You connect to it at
port 117 of netinfo.berkeley.edu, e.g. on some systems, "telnet
netinfo.berkeley.edu 117". The "ufind", "ufile", "uhost" and "upath"
commands are used to look up information in the UUCP maps. For more
information about Netinfo, connect to it and type "?".
o Merit Network NetMail database
Allows one to find the appropriate bitnet, internet or uucp address for a
site given part of the address.
telnet hermes.merit.edu
At the "Which Host?" prompt, type netmailsites then enter any part of the
address you want.
o nslook/nslookup and hostq programs
Some sites have programs which will give you information about a host given
its name or IP address. Some such programs include nslook, nslookup, and
hostq.
o /etc/hosts Changed: Mon Feb 15 1993
Mail routing on UNIX machines on the internet use to use a large file called
/etc/hosts to validate host names. We used to advise you to examine this
file to guess host names when all else fails - but that really isn't useful
anymore. Use one of the above methods instead.
******************************************************************************
* Commercial Networks *
******************************************************************************
o Internet to America Online Changed: Sat Dec 7 1996
Creating the Internet version of an America Online address requires that you
know the conversion rule. You ignore the case, remove the spaces, and add
"@aol.com" to the end of the address. Thus, an America Online address "Jane
Doe" becomes "janedoe@aol.com" (without the quotes, of course). Internet
mail incoming to America Online is trucated at 27 kilobytes. To find
addreses, send e-mail to NameSearch@aol.com and provide the user's real
name, state, and city. Their World-Wide Web service at
<URL:http://home.aol.com/> allows you to search for members' home pages
containing the search terms you specify.
o Internet to Compuserve Changed: Sat Dec 7 1996
If someone's Compuserve ID is 77777,7777 you can send Internet mail to
77777.7777@compuserve.com (change the comma to a dot, and append the site
name). Their Web directory at
<URL:http://www.sprynet.com/ourworld/searchow/> lets you search for people
by name, location, or occupation.
o Internet to DELPHI Changed: Sat Dec 7 1996
Delphi users can recieve Internet EMail at <username>@delphi.com. Usernames
are user-defined and vary from handles to real names. Their Web directory
at <URL:http://www.delphi.com/dir-html/simple_web_search.html> lets you
search for member Web pages containing your search terms, or browse their
username directory.
o Internet to GEnie Changed: Sat Dec 7 1996
Creating the Internet version of a GEnie address requires that you add
"@genie.com" to the end of the address. Thus, a GEnie address "J.DOE3"
becomes "J.DOE3@genie.com" (without the quotes, of course). There is no
added cost to GEnie users (beyond normal connect-time charges) to send or
receive Internet mail. GEnie addresses are case-insensitive, but you should
preserve periods.
o Internet to Prodigy Changed: Sat Dec 7 1996
Prodigy users receive Internet mail via the address format
abcd12a@prodigy.com
where "abcd12a" is the recipient's Prodigy user ID. We have not found an
Internet-accessible directory.
o Internet to T-Online (Germany) Created: Wed Nov 22 1995
Since Summer 1995, T-Online (former BTX) users have access to the Internet.
Use the T-Online Id of the recipient and add -000x where x is the
appropriate user number, mostly 1. The T-Online Id is mostly equal to the
telephone-number of the person, inculding the city prefix. To send a mail to
a T-Online user in Frankfurt (city prefix: 069), with the telefon number
123456, send Internet mail to 069123456-0001@T-Online.de.
******************************************************************************
* References *
******************************************************************************
If you want to learn more about computer networks and how they interact with
each other, these books and articles might be interesting and useful to you:
* !%@:: A Directory of Electronic Mail Addressing & Networks by Donnalyn
Frey and Rick Adams ISBN 1-56592-031-7 (published by O'Reilly, E-mail
nuts@ora.com) (current edition published in August 1993; $24.95 cover
price)
* The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide, by John
S. Quarterman, Digital Press, Bedford, MA, 1990. $50. Digital order
number EY-C176E-DP-SS, Digital Press ISBN 155558-033-5, Prentice-Hall ISBN
0-13-565607-9.
* ``Strategies for Finding People on Networks,'' by John S. Quarterman,
Matrix News, Vol. 1, No. 6, pg. 3, Matrix Information and Directory
Services, Austin, Texas, September 1991.
* The user's directory of computer networks, ed. Tracy L. LaQuey, Digital
Press, Bedford, MA, 1990. Digital order number EY-C200E-DP, ISBN
1-55558-047-5.
* Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide, by Brendan Kehoe,
Prentice Hall, July 1992. ISBN 0-13-010778-6. (This is the second
edition. The first edition is available for free on-line. To find out
how to get it, send mail to archive-server@cs.widener.edu with "send zen
hints" in the body of the message.)
******************************************************************************
* Useful Usenet Postings *
******************************************************************************
Subject: Gopher (comp.infosystems.gopher) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gopher,news.answers
Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 1/3 [Monthly posting]
Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 2/3 [Monthly posting]
Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 3/3 [Monthly posting]
Newsgroups: soc.college,soc.net-people,news.answers
Subject: Updated Inter-Network Mail Guide
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,alt.bbs.lists,alt.internet.services,comp.misc,comp.answers,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: Tips on using soc.net-people [l.m. 13/09/92]
Newsgroups: soc.net-people
[Same as above -- check the archives for a newer version if this one isn't
available.]
Available in the indicated Usenet newsgroup(s), or via anonymous ftp from
rtfm.mit.edu in the files:
/pub/usenet/news.answers/gopher-faq
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part2
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part3
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/inter-network-guide
/pub/usenet/soc.net-people/Tips_on_using_soc.net-people_[l.m._13_09_92]
Also available from mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu by sending a mail message
containing any or all of:
send usenet/news.answers/gopher-faq
send usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part1
send usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part2
send usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part3
send usenet/news.answers/mail/inter-network-guide
send usenet/soc.net-people/Tips_on_using_soc.net-people_[l.m._13_09_92]
Send a message containing "help" to get general information about the mail
server.
******************************************************************************
* Credits *
******************************************************************************
This FAQ was originally maintained by Jonathan I. Kamens; David Lamb took
over maintenance in January 1994. In July 1995 David merged in the general
information on finding addresses from the College E-mail FAQ, originally
created by Mark Kantrowitz.
Comments about, suggestions about or corrections to this posting are
welcomed. If you would like to ask me to change this posting in some way, the
method I appreciate most is for you to actually make the desired modifications
to a copy of the posting, and then to send me the modified posting, or a
context diff between my posted version and your modified version (if you do
the latter, make sure to include in your mail the "Version:" line from my
posted version). Submitting changes in this way makes dealing with them
easier for me and helps to avoid misunderstandings about what you are
suggesting.
These people provided useful comments, information and/or suggestions:
Randall Atkinson <atkinson@itd.nrl.navy.mil>
Ed Blackman <ebb7683@rigel.tamu.edu>
B. Blissenbach <brubli@purodha.gun.de>
Mark Brader <msb@sq.com>
Bruno Chatras <chatras@simob.cnet-pab.fr>
Jim Cheetham <jim@oasis.icl.co.uk>
Huang Chih-Hsien <u7911013@cc.nctu.edu.tw>
Marcel Dorenbos <M.C.M.Dorenbos@research.kpn.com>
Alessio Dragoni <drago@ats.it>
Ralph E. Droms <droms@bucknell.edu>
Donald E. Eastlake, III <dee@ranger.enet.dec.com>
Marshall Gene Flax <mgflax@phoenix.Princeton.edu>
Arthur K. Ho <artho@kgnvmw.vnet.ibm.com>
Patrick Hoepfner <hoepfner@heasfs.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Dan Hoey <hoey@aic.nrl.navy.mil>
Kjetil Torgrim Homme <kjetilho@ifi.uio.no>
Eric Ideler <ideler@prl.philips.nl>
Ivar Mar Jonsson <ivar@ppc.ubc.ca>
Jonathan I. Kamens <jik@security.ov.com>
Mark Kantrowitz <mkant+@cs.cmu.edu>
Dan Kegel <dank@blacks.jpl.nasa.gov>
Jonathan Kochmer <nwnetman@u.washington.edu>
Patt Leonard <leonard@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>
Jerry Martin <nic@osu.edu>
Skip Montanaro <skip@automatrix.com>
Dan Muller <danm@zipnet.net>
Eric De Mund <ead@ixian.com>
Paul D. Nanson <pdn@vnet.ibm.com>
Hank Nussbacher <hank@ibm.net.il>
Jerry Peek <jerry@ora.com>
Edward P. Piecewicz <edwardp@cs.umb.edu>
Tim Pozar <pozar@kumr.lns.com>
Mark Prior <mrp@itd.adelaide.edu.au>
John S. Quarterman <mids@tic.com>
Gowri Ramanathan <ramanag@research.cs.orst.edu>
Michael Santullo <santullo@sled.com>
Jenny Schmidt <jenny@whowhere.com>
Ellen Keyne Seebacher <elle@midway.uchicago.edu>
Rolf E. Sonneveld <ICP@research.kpn.com>
Andrew Starr <atstarr@amherst.edu>
Donald.Stoye@Eng.Sun.COM <>
Robert Ullmann <ariel@relay.prime.com>
Edward Vielmetti <emv@msen.com>
Peter M. Weiss <pmw1@psuvm.psu.edu>
Bill Wells <netinfo@violet.berkeley.edu>
Martin Westphal <martin@PNN.sgz-bank.com>
Bill Wohler <wohler@sap-ag.de>
Peter J. Woodrow <woodrow@ijsapl.enet.dec.com>
******************************************************************************
* Copying *
******************************************************************************
You can reprint (or archive, or make CDs of) this FAQ posting anywhere you
want, as long as the following conditions are met:
* You use as recent a version of the FAQ as possible.
* The copyright holders' names (as well as the section listing other people
who have contributed) stays on it.
* Any modifications (other than typesetting changes) you make to it are
clearly designated as your modifications. If you are significantly
reformatting the information in the FAQ, then you don't have to explicitly
show every change from the original, but you make clear that what you are
printing is derived from our FAQ rather than a direct copy of it.
* You tell people where to find updated versions of it, i.e., what
newsgroups it appears in.
* If paying outside authors for articles is standard practice of the forum
in which you wish to reprint it, then we would appreciate some sort of
reimbursement for the reprinting. However, we leave this to your
discretion (i.e., you can pay us or not; if you choose to pay us, the
amount can be whatever you think is appropriate).
--
http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/home/dalamb/
Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer:
Last Update August 06 1997 @ 02:49 AM faq-admin@faqs.org