PC Press 1997 July/Sezamfile97_1.iso/internet/info/findmail.faq

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From: [e-mail] (David Alex Lamb)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,soc.net-people,news.announce.newusers,news.newusers.questions,comp.answers,soc.answers,news.answers
Subject: FAQ: How to find people's E-mail addresses
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Date: 25 Aug 1996 09:28:26 GMT
Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
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Archive-name: finding-addresses
Version: $Id: finding.n,v 2.8 1996/07/05 20:08:16 dalamb Exp dalamb $

Copyright 1991,1992,1993,1994 Jonathan I. Kamens
Copyright 1994,1995,1996 David Alex Lamb.
See
end of fileCopying
for copying permissions.

This FAQ is available on the World-Wide Web (via browsers such as Mosaic or
lynx) at
  <URL:http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/email/finding.html>
This FAQ is also available in French at <URL:http://web.fdn.fr/fdn/doc-
misc/find-e-mail-add/>

******************************************************************************
*                                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                                *
******************************************************************************
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.
  * WhoWhere?  at <URL:http://www.whowhere.com/> is an online directory of
    contact information on individuals and organizations.  Its search engine
    can handle misspelled or incomplete names.
  * Four11 at <URL:http://www.four11.com/> is a commercial online directory
    service with over 6.5 million listings (as of June 1996) All Internet
    users are provided free basic access, which includes a free listing and
    free searching.  You can also access the service by sending mail to
    [e-mail].
  * Internet Address Finder at <URL:http://www.iaf.net/> has about 4.5 million
    listings as of July 1996.

o Altavista                                           Created: Fri Jul  5 1996

  Digital's Altavista search engine at <URL:http://www.altavista.digital.com>
  indexes Web pages and 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 this way.

o National white pages                                Changed: Mon Jul 15 1996

  There are a few internet white pages based on nationality; I'm aware of ones
  for Italians at <URL:http://www.ats.it/wpages/> and for Israelis at
  <URL:http://www.ibm.net.il/WebPh>.

o lookup.com                                          Changed: Fri Jul  5 1996

  LookUP! at <URL:http://www.lookup.com/> merged with Four11Four11.com in the
  spring of 1996.

******************************************************************************
*                                Gopher and PH                               *
******************************************************************************
Gopher is an Internet-wide distributed document retrieval service.  If your
site has a gopher client program, you can use it to access gopher servers
at other sites; domain X.edu might have a gopher server gopher.X.edu, but
there's no guarantee.  One kind of document sites often place under gopher
is their phonebook; many phonebooks are managed through a system
called
PH, documented at <URL:http://www.amherst.edu/~atstarr/computers/ph.html>.

  Most Gopher servers have pointers to a complete list of ph servers used by
all sorts of organizations.  You can enter various criteria, in an easy-to-use
manner, and it will return the info that you didn't give (if, of course, there
are no more than 20 entries that match.  This is to prevent people getting
mailing lists via the ph servers.)

  Many of the on-line methods for finding addresses documented below are
easily accessible, with a consistent user interface, from the Internet Gopher
burrow at the University of Minnesota.  If you are on the Internet, you may
want to try using Gopher to do your searching before going directly to any of
the methods described below.  Ask someone at your site to find out if Gopher
clients are installed there.  Or, to find out how to use it and/or install it
yourself, see the comp.infosystems.gopher FAQ posting at
<URL:gopher://mudhoney.micro.umn.edu:70/00/Gopher.FAQ>.

******************************************************************************
*                              Other Techniques                              *
******************************************************************************

o College Email Addresses

  The College Email FAQ at
  <URL:http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/email/college.html> 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 belowUseful Usenet postings (in the "Useful
  Usenet postings" section).

o 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 [e-mail]
  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".

o 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.

o whois/nicname                                       Changed: Tue Jul  4 1995

  Whois is the internet user name directory service. 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
  [e-mail] to query the "whois" database; send a message with
  "help" in the body to find out more information.

  Note, furthermore, that 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).

o 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
  [e-mail] 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 <[e-mail]> 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.

o Other directory services

  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 at
  <URL:http://pobox.com/pobox/>, 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 [e-mail]

  Many Bitnet sites have name servers that can be queried in one way or
  another.  To get a list of them with documentation, send a mail message to
  [e-mail] (a.k.a [e-mail]) with the command
  "send bitnet servers" in the body of the message.

  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 [e-mail] 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
  [e-mail] (or [e-mail]) 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
  [e-mail] (again, [e-mail] 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 [e-mail] (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.

  KPN Research (formerly PTT Research) in the Netherlands runs a server that
  you can use to look up addresses for its employees.  If you know someone who
  may work there, you can find out how to use the server by sending a mail
  message to [e-mail] with "help" in the body of the message.
  Note that this is not a "complete" whois site; it just supports limited mail
  server queries.

  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 "[e-mail]" or to
  "[e-mail]", 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
  [e-mail].

  In Australia, there are a number of methods you can use to find someone
  connected to AARNet.
    * There is an X.500 white pages service, accessible via a public access
      account on wp.adelaide.edu.au. To use it, log in as "fred" and select a
      user agent to run ("de" is probably the easiest).  You can also send
      queries by mail to [e-mail] (sending the query
      "help" will return instructions).
    * There is a netfind access point (see below) on Archie.AU.
    * A number of sites provide information via finger and whois.

  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-
  [e-mail].  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 <URL:gopher://nstn.ns.ca>.

o 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 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.

o Using 'finger'                                      Changed: Tue Jul  4 1995

  Finger is a user information lookup program that lists the login name, full
  name, office location and phone number (if known), login time, idle time,
  time mail was last read, and the contents of the .plan and information
  listed varies from site to site, and not all sites allow remote fingering.
  [Plan files are "sys$login:plan" on VMS systems.]

  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.  Many sites support finger servers that will do first-
  name, last-name and/or user-name searches through their user space.  For
  example, the machine "mit.edu" supports a directory of all staff and
  students at MIT; that directory can be searched using finger by last name or
  by user name, and other parameters can be used to restrict the search as
  well.

  To finger someone at another site, you generally type "finger name@host".
  If this doesn't work for you, you should check with someone locally to find
  more more information about whether it's possible to finger from your site,
  and if so, how to do it.

  If fingering using the last name doesn't work, you can try the following
  possibilities for guessing user IDs.  We use a generic acronym for the
  method, formed from f's for characters from the front of the first name, m's
  for characters from the front of the middle name, l's for characters from
  the front of the last name.  Examples are given for two full names: "Mark
  Kantrowitz" (no middle initial, long last name) and "John C Smith".
    * Many UNIX sites limit userids to 8 characters, so try the first 8
      characters of the last name. [smith or kantrowi] llllllll
    * If there are two people with the same last name, the first initial (and
      possibly the middle initial as well) are appended at the front of the
      name. [jsmith or jcsmith] flllllll fmllllll
    * Try appending the initials at the end of the name. [smithj or smithjc]
      lllllllf llllllfm
    * Try the initials of the users name. [jcs] fml
    * Some sites allow longer "aliases" for finger and for mailboxes.  Aliases
      might be arbitrary, but some sites allow some form of the user's full
      name, such as firstname.lastname [John.Smith or Mark.Kantrowitz] or
      firstname_lastname.

o Netfind

  Netfind is a "white pages" service that allows you to query one service and
  have it search several other address databases of various sorts for
  addresses matching your query.  It is a program for SunOS workstations and
  requires your computer to be directly connected to the Internet.  The source
  code is available by anonymous FTP from ftp.cs.colorado.edu, in
  pub/cs/distribs/netfind.

  People without a Sun on which to run Netfind on can telnet to any of the
  following Netfind servers and log in as "netfind" (with no password):
    archie.au                   AARNet, Melbourne, Australia
    bruno.cs.colorado.edu       University of Colorado, Boulder
    dino.conicit.ve             Nat. Council for Techn. & Scien.
                Research Venezuela
    ds.internic.net             InterNIC Directory and DB Services,
                S. Plainfield, NJ
    lincoln.technet.sg          Technet Unit, Singapore
    macs.ee.mcgill.ca           McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
    malloco.ing.puc.cl          Catholic University of Chile, Santiago
    monolith.cc.ic.ac.uk        Imperial College, London, England
    mudhoney.micro.umn.edu      University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
    netfind.oc.com              OpenConnect Systems, Dallas, Texas
    netfind.vslib.cz            Liberec University of Technology,
                Czech Republic
    nic.nm.kr                   Korea Network Information Center, Taejon, Korea
    nic.uakom.sk                Academy of Sciences, Banska Bystrica, Slovakia
    redmont.cis.uab.edu         University of Alabama at Birmingham

  There is a mailing list where new releases of netfind will be announced; you
  can subscribe by sending mail to [e-mail].

  Netfind was developed by Mike Schwartz <[e-mail]> and Panos
  Tsirigotis <[e-mail]>.

o 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 ([e-mail] or [e-mail]).  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.

o Searching LISTSERV mailing lists                    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 [e-mail]; 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, [e-mail]. 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.

o 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.

o 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.

o postmaster                                          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.

o 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                             *
******************************************************************************

o Whois

  The NIC "whois" database mentioned abovewhois 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.

o 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 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.

o UUCP maps                                           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.

o 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 "?".

o 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.

o 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.

o /etc/hosts                                          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                            *
******************************************************************************

o Internet to America Online                          Changed: Tue Sep  5 1995

  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 "[e-mail]" (without the quotes, of course).  Internet
  mail incoming to America Online is trucated at 27 kilobytes.  To find
  addreses, send e-mail to [e-mail] and provide the user's real
  name, state, and city; you can also try their World-Wide Web service at
  <URL:http://home.aol.com/>.

o Internet to Compuserve                              Created: Mon Sep 11 1995

  If someone's Compuserve ID is 77777,7777 you can send Internet mail to
  [e-mail] (change the comma to a dot, and append the site
  name).

o Internet to DELPHI                                  Created: Wed Nov  9 1994

  Delphi users can recieve Internet EMail at <username>@delphi.com.  Usernames
  are user-defined and vary from handles to real names.  Only Delphi users can
  gain information on other Delphi users from within Delphi -- an Internet-
  wide finger facility is (unfortunately) unavailable.

o Internet to GEnie                                   Created: Wed Nov  9 1994

  Creating the Internet version of a GEnie address requires that you add
  "@genie.geis.com" to the end of the address.  Thus, a GEnie address "J.DOE3"
  becomes "[e-mail]" (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.

o Internet to Prodigy                                 Created: Mon Sep  6 1993

  Around July 1993 there were rumours that Prodigy was beta-testing an
  Internet gateway. We don't know if there would be any cost to Prodigy users,
  but they need new software, called Mail Manager, and can sign up for
  Internet access at JUMP INTERNET. Prodigy users would receive Internet mail
  via the address format
    [e-mail]
  where "abcd12a" is the recipient's Prodigy user ID.

o Internet to T-Online (Germany)                      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 [e-mail].

******************************************************************************
*                                 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
    [e-mail]) (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 [e-mail] with "send zen
    hints" in the body of the message.)

******************************************************************************
*                           Useful Usenet Postings                           *
******************************************************************************
  Subject: Gopher (comp.infosystems.gopher) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gopher,news.answers
  Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 1/3 [Monthly posting]
  Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 2/3 [Monthly posting]
  Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 3/3 [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/gopher-faq
  /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/inter-network-guide
  /pub/usenet/soc.net-people/Tips_on_using_soc.net-people_[l.m._13_09_92]

  Also available from [e-mail] by sending a mail message
containing any or all of:
  send usenet/news.answers/gopher-faq
  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/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 <[e-mail]>
Ed Blackman <[e-mail]>
B. Blissenbach <[e-mail]>
Mark Brader <[e-mail]>
Bruno Chatras <[e-mail]>
Jim Cheetham <[e-mail]>
Huang Chih-Hsien <[e-mail]>
Marcel Dorenbos <[e-mail]>
Alessio Dragoni <[e-mail]>
Ralph E. Droms <[e-mail]>
Donald E. Eastlake, III <[e-mail]>
Marshall Gene Flax <[e-mail]>
Arthur K. Ho <[e-mail]>
Patrick Hoepfner <[e-mail]>
Dan Hoey <[e-mail]>
Kjetil Torgrim Homme <[e-mail]>
Eric Ideler <[e-mail]>
Ivar Mar Jonsson <[e-mail]>
Jonathan I. Kamens <[e-mail]>
Mark Kantrowitz <[e-mail]>
Dan Kegel <[e-mail]>
Jonathan Kochmer <[e-mail]>
Patt Leonard <[e-mail]>
Jerry Martin <[e-mail]>
Skip Montanaro <[e-mail]>
Eric de Mund <[e-mail]>
Paul D. Nanson <[e-mail]>
Hank Nussbacher <[e-mail]>
Jerry Peek <[e-mail]>
Edward P. Piecewicz <[e-mail]>
Tim Pozar <[e-mail]>
Mark Prior <[e-mail]>
John S. Quarterman <[e-mail]>
Gowri Ramanathan <[e-mail]>
Michael Santullo <[e-mail]>
Jenny Schmidt <[e-mail]>
Ellen Keyne Seebacher <[e-mail]>
Rolf E. Sonneveld <[e-mail]>
Andrew Starr <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] <>
Robert Ullmann <[e-mail]>
Edward Vielmetti <[e-mail]>
Peter M. Weiss <[e-mail]>
Bill Wells <[e-mail]>
Martin Westphal <[e-mail]>
Bill Wohler <[e-mail]>
Peter J. Woodrow <[e-mail]>

******************************************************************************
*                                   Copying                                  *
******************************************************************************

  You can reprint (or archive, or make CDs of) this FAQ posting anywhere you
want, as long as the following conditions are met:
  * You use as recent a version of the FAQ as possible.
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--
http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/home/dalamb/info.html