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?”
Maintainer: David Alex Lamb (dalamb@spamcop.net)
Version: $Id: finding.n,v 2.49 2005/02/17 18:53:41 dalamb Exp $
Copyright © 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 Jonathan I. Kamens
Copyright © 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005 David Alex Lamb.
The master copy of this page is at
Queen’s University. An older version of
this FAQ is available in French
Index
- Introduction
- Avoid public distribution of individuals’ addresses
- Web Searches
- E-mail directories
- Phone and Surface Address Directories
- Web Search Engines
- National white pages
- Directory Protocols
- PH and WebPH
- LDAP
- Other Techniques
- College and School Email Addresses
- Usenet-addresses server
- Inter-Network Mail Guide
- whois/nicname
- Other whois databases
- Other directory services
- Finding a host name and asking someone there for help
- Using ‘finger’
- Knowbot Information Service
- Searching LISTSERV mailing lists
- Direct contact
- Get more help locally
- postmaster
- The last resort — soc.net-people
- Finding Host Names
- Whois
- U. Texas Network Directory
- UUCP maps
- Netinfo
- Merit Network NetMail database
- nslook/nslookup and hostq programs
- /etc/hosts
- Commercial Networks
- Internet to America Online
- Internet to Compuserve
- Internet to DELPHI
- Internet to GEnie
- Internet to Prodigy
- Internet to T-Online (Germany)
- References
- Useful Usenet Postings
- Credits
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
E-mail directories
Entry Changed: Thu Feb 17 2005
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. My list below is fairly short; there is a longer list at Electro-Byte Technologies. Many
of these were once free, but have now gone commercial (charging a fee for lookups). Some are
primarily phone number searches, but sometimes have e-mail addresses as well.
- Addresses.com
as of early 2004 claims to be
the world’s largest email directory – 10 times the size of any other
email address directory on the web. All people searches are free and content
is protected from spammers. Also verify email, reverse email search, reverse
phone, white pages, yellow pages, area codes and postal/zip codes; phone-based
searches are USA-only. - AnyWho
is a white pages and yellow pages directory service that encourages people to
update their listing to include e-mail addresses. - Bigfoot
had 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. - Find mE-Mail
advertises itself as the place to post your new e-mail address, for your old
e-mail friends. - Fresh Address
FreshAddress.com is a free worldwide registry of old and working email
addresses. People can register their current address
along with any additional working and obsolete email addresses, so friends can
find them even if they only know an old address. - InfoSpace
used to have about 200 million worldwide telephone numbers, and also provides
search for e-mail addresses. Now its front-page search form appearsa to be
USA only. - Internet Address Finder
appears to be USA only. - MESA (MetaEmailSearchAgent)
allows you to submit a single query to multiple search engines, including
Bigfoot,
IAF,
Populus,
Switchboard,
Usenet Addresses,
WhoWhere,
and
Yahoo People Search.
You get to specify how long to wait, and it might time out returning no hits. - Switchboard
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. - WhoWhere?
has directories for e-mail, phone numbers, and personal Web pages.
You can search based on affiliations like occupation, school, or interests. - Yahoo People Search
Phone and Surface Address Directories
Entry Created: Thu Feb 17 2005
These don’t give you e-mail addresses, but can deliver phone numbers you can use to make an
initial contact.
- AllPages.com
has online yellow pages and business directories for the United States. - Find a Friend
is a commercial search service; you pay nothing if your search is empty.
You can search by Social Security Number,
full name and prior address,
name with date of birth or approximate age,
or by phone number - Phonebooke
links to several online phonebooks, some of which have fees.
Web Search Engines
Entry Created: Thu Nov 4 2004
Search engines index Web pages (and sometimes 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 through
your favourite search engine. Since spammers also harvest e-mail addresses from web pages, many
people are removing their email addresses from the Web and using fake addresses for Usenet postings.
National white pages
Entry Changed: Wed Jul 31 2002
There are a few internet white pages based on nationality:
- Australia.
- Austria.
- Belgium.
- Brazil.
- Dennmark:
http://www.epost.dk/,
http://joes.jubii.dk/,
http://adressebog.sektornet.dk/ - France.
- Germany:
German Telecom,
http://www.suchen.de/,
http://www.finden.de/. - Hungary.
(people with some connection to…) - Ireland.
- Israel.
- Italy.
- Netherlands.
- Slovenia.
- South Africa:
free
(a frames-based page that I had trouble loading),
commercial
(pay only if found) - Sweden.
- Switzerland:
http://www.email111.ch/
(click on
“Email-Suche”);
www.directories.ch
(German)
Directory Protocols
PH and WebPH
Entry Changed: Thu Apr 1 1999
PH, is a system for managing “phone books.” 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.
LDAP
Entry Created: Thu Apr 1 1999
LDAP, is a “Lightweight Directory Access Protocol”.
PH is used more heavily at colleges and universities; LDAP seems to be used more by commercial
organizations.
Other Techniques
College and School Email Addresses
The College Email FAQ 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.
If the university has a PH (phonebook) server, it may be listed in the
Colleges and Universities
PH server directory.
ClassMates
lets secondary school alumni freely register their e-mail addresses; the
database covers US, Canada, and American Overseas high schools (2 million
entries as of August, 1999).
Searches require a fee.
Alumni.NET
has a smaller database (750,000 as of August 1999) but does not charge for
searches.
Curious Cat Educated Connections
indexes colleges, high schools, and grade schools in the USA, Canada, and
Australia. You can register so that school friends can find you.
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”.
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.
whois/nicname
Entry Changed: Sat Dec 6 1997
Whois is the internet user name directory service. It’s available on some UNIX systems as a
command called “whois” or “nicname”. 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.
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).
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.
Other directory services
Entry Changed: Thu Feb 17 2005
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,
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
Other sources of permanent e-mail addresses include
ActiveNames,
by
Google,
and
Yahoo.
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.
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.
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 nstn.ns.ca.
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
‘finding host names’
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.
Using ‘finger’
Entry 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. Some sites provide Web-based
interfaces to finger, such as Middlebury College.
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.
Searching LISTSERV mailing lists
Entry 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.
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.
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.
postmaster
Entry 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.
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
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.
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
‘References’ 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.
UUCP maps
Entry 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.
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 “?”.
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.
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.
/etc/hosts
Entry 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
Internet to America Online
Entry 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 home.aol.com
allows you to search for members’ home pages containing the search terms you specify.
Internet to Compuserve
Entry 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 lets you search for people by
name, location, or occupation.
Internet to DELPHI
Entry Changed: Sat Dec 7 1996
Delphi users can receive Internet EMail at <username>@delphi.com. Usernames are user-
defined and vary from handles to real names. Their Web directory lets you search for member Web pages containing your
search terms, or browse their username directory.
Internet to GEnie
Entry 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.
Internet to Prodigy
Entry 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.
Internet to T-Online (Germany)
Entry 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: FAQ: College Email Addresses 1/4 [Monthly posting]
Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 2/4 [Monthly posting]
Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 3/4 [Monthly posting]
Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 4/4 [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/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/college-email/part4
/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/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/college-email/part4
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
- Mark Brader
(msb@sq.com) - Bruno Chatras
- Jim Cheetham
- Huang Chih-Hsien
- Marcel Dorenbos
- Alessio Dragoni
(drago@ats.it) - Ralph E. Droms
- Donald E. Eastlake, III
- Marshall Gene Flax
- Arthur K. Ho
- Patrick Hoepfner
(hoepfner@heasfs.gsfc.nasa.gov) - Dan Hoey
(hoey@aic.nrl.navy.mil) - Kjetil Torgrim Homme
(kjetilho@ifi.uio.no) - Ivar Mar Jonsson
- Jonathan I. Kamens
(jik@security.ov.com) - Mark Kantrowitz
(mkant+@cs.cmu.edu) - Dan Kegel (dank at alumni.caltech.edu)
- Jonathan Kochmer
- Patt Leonard
(leonard@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu) - Jerry Martin
(nic@osu.edu) - Skip Montanaro
- Dan Muller
(dmuller@etrademail.com) - Eric De Mund
(ead@ixian.com) - Hank Nussbacher
(hank@ibm.net.il) - Jerry Peek
(jpeek@jpeek.com) - Tim Pozar
(pozar@kumr.lns.com) - Mark Prior
- John S. Quarterman
- Gowri Ramanathan
- Michael Santullo
(santullo@Four11.com) - Jenny Schmidt
(jenny@whowhere.com) - Ellen Keyne Seebacher
- Rolf E. Sonneveld
- Andrew Starr
- Donald Stoy
- Robert Ullmann
- Edward Vielmetti
- Peter M. Weiss
(pmw1@psuvm.psu.edu) - Bill Wells
- Sean White
(sean@whowhere.com) - Martin Westphal
(martin@PNN.sgz-bank.com) - Bill Wohler
(wohler@sap-ag.de) - Peter J. Woodrow
May 2005 :: External Article Source 1.01