9. WHOIS - E-mail white pages

WHOIS is a program available on many workstation/mini/mainframe computers that can connect to another computer. By supplying a persons name, it will respond with information it has on the person. A similar program called finger does the same type of thing, except it only supplies information on individuals with an account on that specific computer. A WHOIS database generally is contains information on most of the individuals at a university, not just on the machine you connect to.

In a larger sense WHOIS is a technique for finding a person's e-mail address. There is no master list of e-mail addresses on the network. Standards have been established for supplying e-mail addresses, but it will take some time for it to be globally implemented. In the meantime, the easiest way to find out is to call and ask!

I can just hear the gasps of horror, using the phone for anything but talking to your mom, sacrilege. There are, of course, many ways of finding a person's e-mail address. But what you don't know is if the person even reads his/her e-mail, and in the case of multiple e-mail addresses, which one is correct. A simple phone call the first time will answer those unknowns quickly.

The following documents and resources will assist in finding a person's e-mail address.

9.1. College E-mail Address

Mark Kantrowitz (mkant@cs.cmu.edu) of Caregie-Mellon University has compiled an extensive list of techniques for locating e-mail addresses for many universities. This document contains an alphabetic listing of universities and searching techniques unique to each.

      Source:
      Anonymous ftp to a.gp.cs.cmu.edu
         Note: for password you must use your e-mail address in the
            form of name@computer.
      cd /afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mkant/Public/Email

         Note: you must cd to this directory as above, because
            intermediate directories are protected.
      get college-email.-#.text.##
         Note: the files are separated into several sections and you
            need to specify the sections you want by replacing the #
            shown above with a number 1, 2, 3 etc.

      You also can send mail to mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu with
      no subject and the body of the text message (with no signature)

      send usenet/soc.college/FAQ:_College_Email_Addresses
      _1_2_[Monthly_posting]

      send usenet/soc.college/FAQ:_College_Email_Addresses
      _2_2_[Monthly_posting]

      Note the above commands should be all on one line.

9.2. Netfind

Netfind is a program that goes out and queries the network in an organized way to find e-mail addresses.

      Source:
        Telnet bruno.cs.colorado.edu
        Login is netfind

9.3. Inter-Network Guide

When mailing from one network to another you need to know what address to use to access the gateway. For instance, if you want to send a message from the Internet to someone on CompuServe, you address it to 12345.1234@compuserve.com, where the 12345.1234 is the person's CompuServe ID in the form 12345,1234.

The Inter-Network Mail Guide by John Chew provides this information.

Source: Send a mail message to listserv@unmvm.unm.edu No subject Message body of: GET NETWORK GUIDE

9.4. WHOIS List

The following is a list of universities that have a WHOIS service working. A more complete list has been collected by Matt Power of MIT (mhpower@athena.mit.edu).

      Source:

      Anonymous ftp to sipb.mit.edu
      cd pub/whois
      get whois-servers.list

      The following is a short list of WHOIS servers.

9.5. The Ohio State University

      Telnet to osu.edu
      Use WHOIS command whois -h osu.edu
      Enter firstname.lastname
      Example: whois -h osu.edu jerry.smith

9.6. University of Oregon

      Use WHOIS command whois -h oregon.uoregon.edu
      Enter firstname.lastname
      Example: whois -h oregon.uoregon.edu Rose.Smith

9.7. University of Virginia

      Use WHOIS command whois -h whois.virginia.edu
      Enter lastname, firstname middlename
      Example: whois -h whois.virginia.edu Smith, John James

9.8. University of Pennsylvania

      Use WHOIS command whois -h whois.upenn.edu
      Enter lastname, firstname
      Example: whois -h whois.upenn.edu Smith, Judy

9.9. University of Wisconsin

      Use WHOIS command whois -h wisc.edu
      Enter firstname lastname
      Example: whois -h wisc.edu Jane Smith

9.10. MIT

      Use WHOIS command whois -h mit.edu
      Enter firstname_lastname
      Example: whois -h mit.edu Robert_Smith

9.11. Indiana University

      Use WHOIS command whois -h iugate.ucs.indiana.edu
      Enter firstname_lastname
      Example: whois -h iugate.ucs.indiana.edu Gerald_Smith

9.12. Stanford University

      Use WHOIS command whois -h stanford.edu
      Enter firstname lastname
      Example: whois -h stanford.edu "shirley smith"

9.13. University of California at Davis

      Use WHOIS command whois -h ucdavis.edu
      Enter lastname,firstname
      Example: whois -h ucdavis.edu smith,sandra

9.14. Directory of ERNET users in India

      Use WHOIS command whois -h sangam.ernet.in help
      (will give the help screen with examples)

      Enter city name
      Example: whois -h sangam.ernet.in bombay
      (will list all computer names at bombay)

      Enter name@computer
      Example: whois -h sangam.ernet.in joshi@shakti
      (will match all users on shakti matching the pattern "johsi")