Very Strange " whois " behaviour ...!

Any of you noticed this before ?

[ideavirus]

Hii,

I wanted to check for the avaliability of a domain...and as usual, i pointed my browser to register.com. unfortunately...register was refusing to load for me...so i checked for the same at allwhois.com.

Well , when i searched for the avaliability of the domain i wanted...this strange message is what I got :

mydomain.com
Request: mydomain.com
Welcome to the VeriSign Registrar WHOIS Server.

The IP address from which you have visited the VeriSign Registrar WHOIS
database is contained within a list of IP addresses that may have failed
to abide by VeriSign's WHOIS policy. Failure to abide by this policy can
adversely impact our systems and servers, preventing the processing of
other WHOIS requests.

To see the VeriSign WHOIS Policy, click on or copy and paste the following
URL into your browser:

[netsol.com...]

If you feel that you have received this message in error, please contact us at
1-888-642-9675, (703)-742-0914, or via e-mail at:
[e-mail]

Your IP address is xxx.xx.xxx.xx

Since when is ...that the web clients should meet the whois requirements to use the same...sounds funny to me...never seen this before, rather never happened this to me before...!

Thanks for any feedback

Cheers
:)

[Nick_W]

Well I got something similar on samspade.org the other day, something about to many request coming from that server.... maybe the databases are tightning up...

Nick

[richlowe]

My understanding is Verisign had to do this because of a vast number of WHOIS servers that were using their database in an automated manner. This cost an incredible about of bandwidth for Verisign with no benefit to them. Typically, these automated harvesters are used for (a) building spam lists from the WHOIS data, (b) scanning the entire list to find choice domain names, (c) same for soon-to-be-deleted names and (d) other registrars using the list for their own mailing campaigns.

Basically, they put a stop to abuse of their whois servers.

RIchard Lowe

[ideavirus]

richlowe :

Your reply makes a lot of sense to me..but i don't use my system for any such activities...yet my IP is in the blocked list...!
Yes, i do quite a bit of domain name avaliability checking...but i do so manually...and never used any script...!

I really wonder, how my IP got in their list !?

Thanks again
:)

[richlowe]

Based upon your first message, I would conclude it is Allwhois's IP that is blocked, not yours. Try some other whois server and see what happens...

Richard Lowe

[richlowe]

Just tried it myself and got the same message. It's Allwhois that is blocked.

Richard Lowe

[ideavirus]

Thanks for the clarification...!

Cheers

[Lisa]

My Whois site got blocked from Verisign and GoDaddy a few weeks ago too. Verisign and GoDaddy were kind enough to unblock us. Sometimes our site has several thousand people a day researching domain names so my server's IP address gets on the block list. Because of the nature of my site they place it in an unrestricted status so that my site will not get blocked. But in return for having unrestricted access I monitor my clients very closely. If any one person starts requesting several thousand whois records I will block them completely for 60 days.

[ideavirus]

Lisa : Thanks for confirming that again...the message allwhois gave me was a bit confusting or rather..i overread the fact !

Okay, i have another problem today :

I was searching for another domain avaliability :

I tried truewhois.com .. and i got this result :

WHOIS Server Release 1.0

Searching for mydomain.com ...

The Domain Name mydomain.com does not exist

Today, i guess register.com is up with a new design..so i also tried to check for the domain avalibility...it says the domain is registered... but when i check for the whois info for that domain...I get the same message as what truewhois gave me.

Whats exactly it means...when it says..The Domain Name mydomain.com does not exist ...??

Does it mean that...its expired and is about to be released or the whois info is blocked from the public view or something else...??

A bit confused here :( ... thanks much for any feedback

Cheers
:)

[sparrow]

Since we're on this topic, does anybody know why the removed the "reverse lookup" from networksolutions.com. I also found it helpful when I am trying to track down an IP?

[q_b_p]

allwhois.com just worked for me...I tried two random domains. yourdomain.com and qbp.com
yourdomain.com gave me a huge message from godaddy.com, but qbp.com gave me the information I knew already from trying to register it before. No odd data or anything...maybe they're unblocked or got a new database?

[digitalbrain]

verisign had emailed the billing contacts of the .com domains registered via other registrars ( GODADDY had also GOne to the big DADDY complaining about this.)
Now godaddy requires the special number to be punched before getting the whois info ( Who knows robots might learn this too some day ... )
Verisign as usual to keep itself a step up from other registrars might have blocked their ips or developed this strange whois ......After all it is verisign.

[Lisa]

That password thing on GoDaddy's whois is only when you view the whois via their website. That doesn't stop viewing the whois via telneting to port 43 and viewing it there with no password.

This looks more like a PR thing to me. Why protect whois on your website when you leave the other frontdoor wide open.