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Whois: Fragile, Unparseable, Obsolete

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Re: Whois: Fragile, Unparseable, Obsolete

#21

Post by akira2501 »

tooltower wrote: post #11
billpg wrote: post #9

Why do domains have WHOIS records anyway? I get why IP blocks have it because machines actually do things from behind IP addresses, but the only thing I'm doing from a domain name is stopping other people from using it. Someone is hosting copyrighted content? Look up that machine's IP-WHOIS. Someone is trying to DDOS me? Look up that machine's IP-WHOIS. Someone is holding a domain I want? If their answer is going to…

It probably made more sense in the pre-web Internet, when not all domains were necessarily serving web traffic. Or had any obvious or standardized way of serving a "contact us" page.

The DNS SOA record has an RNAME field that is available to convey this information.

Re: Whois: Fragile, Unparseable, Obsolete

#22

Post by tptacek »

cloudyporpoise wrote: post #19

It's sad we can't improve and build modern APIs that can support load and querying and exactly why companies exist whose main business function is scraping services like WhoIs, Social Media, or Sites behind cloudflare.

As the article observes, we can and are doing that: that's what RDAP is.

Re: Whois: Fragile, Unparseable, Obsolete

#25

Post by Fileformat »

I ran into the same issue but worked around it slightly differently: have my code use RDAP, and then have an RDAP->WHOIS proxy [1]. There are usually rate-limits on WHOIS, so public instances won't survive long, but it works for me and you can run locally.

I also hunted (s/whois/rdap/g) around for undocumented RDAP servers and found a few. There are still a lot of TLDs without RDAP though [2].

[1] https://rdap.redirect2.me/ (source at https://github.com/redirect2me/rdap-proxy)

[2] https://resolve.rs/domains/rdap-missing.html

Re: Whois: Fragile, Unparseable, Obsolete

#26

Post by superkuh »

Whois was killed off by the European Union passing the GDPR. It really changed how I use the internet for the worse. In the old days I could always at least send an email to a domain hosting a service. Now there's no default contact information and everything is behind walled gardens.

Email was the great communicator. Removing it from WHOIS made the web more fragile and broken. But whois doesn't have to be that way and the problems are not intrinsic to whois. They are stemming from political interference done with good intentions but bad outcomes.

Re: Whois: Fragile, Unparseable, Obsolete

#27

Post by teddyh »

akira2501 wrote: post #21
tooltower wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably made more sense in the pre-web Internet, when not all domains were necessarily serving web traffic. Or had any obvious or standardized way of serving a "contact us" page.

The DNS SOA record has an RNAME field that is available to convey this information.

See also the RP (Responsible Person) record; RFC 1183: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1183.html

Re: Whois: Fragile, Unparseable, Obsolete

#29

Post by dredmorbius »

superkuh wrote: post #26

Whois was killed off by the European Union passing the GDPR. It really changed how I use the internet for the worse. In the old days I could always at least send an email to a domain hosting a service. Now there's no default contact information and everything is behind walled gardens. Email was the great communicator. Removing it from WHOIS made the web more fragile and broken. But whois doesn't have to be that way a…

Mentioned in TFA FWIW:

the ICANN [contact disclosure] requirement now does indeed conflict with modern privacy laws, such as the EU's GDPR, meaning all domains registered by European registries are in violation of either GDPR or ICANN's requirement.

Re: Whois: Fragile, Unparseable, Obsolete

#30

Post by Animats »

dredmorbius wrote: post #29
superkuh wrote: post #26

Whois was killed off by the European Union passing the GDPR. It really changed how I use the internet for the worse. In the old days I could always at least send an email to a domain hosting a service. Now there's no default contact information and everything is behind walled gardens. Email was the great communicator. Removing it from WHOIS made the web more fragile and broken. But whois doesn't have to be that way a…

Mentioned in TFA FWIW: the ICANN [contact disclosure] requirement now does indeed conflict with modern privacy laws, such as the EU's GDPR, meaning all domains registered by European registries are in violation of either GDPR or ICANN's requirement.

That's only for individuals. For businesses, the reverse is true. It's illegal to run an anonymous business on the Internet in the EU.[1] That's in the Directive on Electronic Commerce.

General information to be provided

1. In addition to other information requirements established by Community law, Member States shall ensure that the service provider shall render easily, directly and permanently accessible to the recipients of the service and competent authorities, at least the following information:

(a) the name of the service provider;

(b) the geographic address at which the service provider is established;

(c) the details of the service provider, including his electronic mail address, which allow him to be contacted rapidly and communicated with in a direct and effective manner;

(d) where the service provider is registered in a trade or similar public register, the trade register in which the service provider is entered and his registration number, or equivalent means of identification in that register;

(e) where the activity is subject to an authorisation scheme, the particulars of the relevant supervisory authority;

The EU wants to make cross-border commerce work. So, they want customers to be able to find sellers should there be a problem.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX...

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