How Do You Whois?

[Vanster]

I think most people do their WHOIS lookups via the web, but are you ever concerned that you queries might not be private? Maybe someone or something is watching? Using you as a form of semi-intelligent available-domain-finder ?

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I prefer to go as close to the source as possible when looking for available domains. I prefer to use a simple whois client from a linux command line. The client connects to port 43 of one of the authoritative WHOIS servers, based on extension, and dumps the results to the console.

You never know if a web based 3rd party WHOIS provider is logging, analyzing or maybe even sitting there in realtime, watching the wishful registrants looking for gold

My advice would be to switch to a linux system and do your lookups via the command line. Maybe the mac os terminal has a whois command? Or you could find a simple little app that runs on your OS. Ideally it would connect directly to an authoritative WHOIS server, ie. whois.crsnic.net, and return the results directly. I know https://www.cygwin.com/ has a whois command, so that would work well for windows users.

So tell me, how do you WHOIS? And have you ever had a domain registered shortly after doing a lookup? I had a similar experience and it was quite frustrating.

Have you ever had the feeling that just knowing about an available domain and thinking about it might be sending out some form of signal to other domainers? Like leaking a good idea into the collective conscience...

 

[katherine]

For domains other than .com/.net, yes you do query the registry direct using telnet on port 43.
Or you visit the website of the registry concerned. The key is to go straight to the source.

 

[Biggie]

ahhhh, the big brother, someone is watching you, syndrome.

actually that shit happened for real, with mo-fo's frontrunning whois checks

http://www.domainnamenews.com/featu...olutions-front-running-on-whois-searches/1359

 

[Vanster]

I know first hand as it happened to me. This was for a totally obscure domain that I figured no one else would want, so I started to configure an email server and apache config for that domain on a home box. Then a couple of days later, I returned to the registrar that I had initially done the whois lookup on, and was shocked that the domain was taken! I gave that registrar a piece of my mind, "how dare youuuuuu!!!!!". Of course they must of thought I was a nutter, because they had nothing to do with it.

So I registered my next best name and a few days later noticed that the original name was now free. WTF? Then I discovered "domain tasting" and things started to click. It turns out some enterprising tech was scanning the net on port 25 for smtp servers, looking for the greeting message that often contains the server's domain name. They then would lookup the name, and if free, give it a taste for web/email traffic. If worth keeping, keep on tasting otherwise drop it.

So the lesson was, don't be an idiot and use a non registered name for anything until you own it Pretty obvious, but alas. Lesson learned...

 

[Somatic]

whois.sc/YOURDOMAINNAME.XYZ

 

[Electric-Shadow]

It's only ever happened to me via GoDaddy, I'm pretty confident they sell on search information when you check availability because just before the new year I checked up on an old domain I let drop but wanted back and it was available, not long later it was taken by an investor and registered for two years.

So I always swear by DomainTools and I've never had any issues with them. I think the problem would come when you do availability checks and whois lookups via registrars but other than GD I've never had any other issues, nor heard of such things anywhere else but no doubt it probably happens.