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Kirby

Whois.net anyone?

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Didn't see any topics mentioned on here, but I'm sure some of you know about whois.net]whois.net, the site that lets you look up who owns a websites domain name, who registered it and when it expires.

Methinks privacy has headed out the window (no surprise here) and interestinlgy enough it appears that the main site for my university will expire next summer o.O

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This is hardly new. You can query any domain name (or IP address) with the whois protocol to find out information about it. Under Unix there's a command line tool to do it. That website is just a web-based frontend, and there are plenty of others.

As for privacy, when you register a domain it's made pretty clear that the information will be publicly accessible. It is possible to anonymously register a domain using Domains by Proxy, but that's a service you have to pay extra for.

All domains have expiry dates, it's likely that your school has a system set up to automatically renew domains before they expire. If you don't renew, the registrar usually sends you an email anyway to remind you.

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Old news. The most annoying thing about it is people who think they're savvy and can get things done by contacting the registrant and harrassing him. No, I don't know why your thing hasn't arrived in the mail - perhaps you should go through the proper channels, you fucking pest.

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fraggle said:

This is hardly new.

Bah, I figured. It only recently came to my attention since someone mentioned it in my Comp Ethics class. Just reminds me of how easy it is to access info on the web.

All domains have expiry dates, it's likely that your school has a system set up to automatically renew domains before they expire. If you don't renew, the registrar usually sends you an email anyway to remind you.

Makes sense. Are they required to update their info in the same instance? From looking at it there's no doubt that the original managers are since gone, although I don't know if it's required to re-upate with the new peoples' names.

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You could also use a web hotel to get your domain and the whois database will only include the web hotel's info.

At least that's how it worked for me.

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Heh, that's been around as long as the Internet has. I remember hearing about it back in the 90s. Never seemed like a huge privacy breach to me. It's used a lot when viral ad/ARG sites pop up and people whois the site to find out what company or whatever registered it. Which sometimes only deepens the mystery...

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It's no different from having your phone number listed in the telephone directory.

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The difference is the phone directory always has information current for the last year. Whois info is often woefully out of date and therefore useless.

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The information's supposed to be kept up-to-date but I wonder how many people bother, then there's the spammers and scammers who register using stolen/fictitious credentials.

fraggle said:

It is possible to anonymously register a domain using Domains by Proxy, but that's a service you have to pay extra for.

Some registrars factor the cost of that service into their fees so they can offer it "at no extra charge".

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Aliotroph? said:

The difference is the phone directory always has information current for the last year. Whois info is often woefully out of date and therefore useless.


Yeah, but I mean that it's not any more "invasion of privacy" than having your number in the phone book.

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Bucket said:

Old news. The most annoying thing about it is people who think they're savvy and can get things done by contacting the registrant and harrassing him. No, I don't know why your thing hasn't arrived in the mail - perhaps you should go through the proper channels, you fucking pest.


This worked great for me when I used a small ebay like site specifically for college books. I sold my books and like a month later I still hadn't gotten my checks after emailing the support, webmaster, and everything. I never even got a response.

So I found the owner's name, turns out he was the only one running it. So, once I found his personal number, I got my money right quick.

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I'm sure the ability to query via whois makes you a criminal. It's intended only for law [sic] enforcement to thwart attempts by communist hackers using illegal software like Lunix to hack into honest citizens' computers and steal their bank accounts. Please stay where you are while I call the IRC captain guy to fix you up, fix you up real good.

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What pisses me off lately is opportunist vermin who put everyone's 'public domain' info on a site (phone number, address, name, relatives) for anyone to easily find. Then they have some slippery loophole where you probably can't even get it removed, like you have to re-remove it every 3 months or something stupid probably. And it would be stupid to make contact with such a place anyway since being pissed about the info would only confirm that you exist and the info is correct to them. Such a place could be real cunts and double dip by charging people who want the information, as well as charging anyone to remove the information.

Would google be able to use whois to know all the sites any individual owns? Like say, hypothetically, I had adsense on sites with family friendly content per google's TOS (no profanity/porn/etc). Would I have to worry about them associating me with 'bad neighborhoods' if I also have separate sites with more edgy content (even if I only put adsense on the family-friendly-content sites)? Like they might go 'sorry, you're associated with these other sites so we don't want you as a partner PERMANENT BAN'. If they wanted to I suppose they could ban people merely based on their browsing history. Or I mean, what if I also make some sort of parody anti-google site or something.. surely I'd have to watch my back for something like that which they wouldn't like?..

Also does anyone know how reliable websiteoutlook is as far as determining how much money a site makes? I saw an idiotic site where some dude makes daily short cartoon gif animations about poop.. websiteoutlook said the guy makes like 50 bucks a day... for making poop gifs... (poor saps working at taco bell for minimum wage apparently don't realize they can make more money drawing poop on the internet). I wonder what portion of that 50 he ultimately keeps (like if its ppc, maybe 50 bucks is before google or whoever takes a cut). I think he used adsense alternatives like adbrite or something (I guess poop content is too edgy for adsense).

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Hey dude, you know what sucks more? you can never even use the internet and someone can find info about you and where you go, what you do, and many other goodies via other people's facebooks, myspaces, comments and other bullshit. You have a social life? prepare to be tagged and logged even if you don't have an account. How wonderful! Does the bank have a security question on your account a hacker can't figure out? Not to worry, a little googling and facebooking will get those little juicy secrets out.

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Looks like I'm managing to stay under the radar - a Google search on my full name turns up a funeral notice and little else. :D

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Apparently I am the CEO of an environmentally-friendly clothing company and have written several Lonely Planet books. I also died in 1987 in the same town I grew up in.

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For me, it turned out I'm a 48-yo computer programmer from New Zealand. Aye mate, wanna come over to drink a couple and put some shrimps on the barbie? Think we deserve a DB? :-D

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GreyGhost said:
Looks like I'm managing to stay under the radar - a Google search on my full name turns up a funeral notice and little else. :D

That seems natural enough, GreyGhost.

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gggmork said:

Would google be able to use whois to know all the sites any individual owns?

Depends on how you register your domains. If you have an other company (or even person) to register them for you (as is often the case with web hotels) it should be that registrant's information that gets on the whois database. The whois queries on Doomworld or my website don't contain any personal information on the actual owner of the website.


The first Google result on my (real) name is this: http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Claustrophobia_1024 :)

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Super Jamie said:

Can't wait for the threads where people discover dig and telnet.


But netstat comes first. ;-)

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Interesting. Evidently, the people who have been sitting on this awesome domain name and have done nothing with it for most of a decade have a business called "Something Consulting."

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myk said:

That seems natural enough, GreyGhost.

Being dead has it's advantages - no grocery bills, worrying about health/fitness or being hassled by life insurance salesmen. OTOH - being incorporeal is a mixed blessing, I'd desperately like to change my wardrobe but it looks like I'm stuck for eternity with the cheap ill-fitting suit I was buried in which has wide lapels! <sob>
My natural affinity with electronic equipment makes desktop PC's an ideal temporary haunt until I've mastered the art of PEP Transfers (*) in order to FTP myself to a decent server farm with big pipes. Being dead doesn't mean I lack ambition. :-)


(*) Poltergeist-Electron-Poltergeist Transfers.

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