Currently it seems that there is no single authoritative WHOIS. Rather,
each registrar keeps its own data of its own registrants. This makes it
difficult to figure out whether a domain is truly available for
registration, so we've rigged up a search system to simultaneously query all
operating testbed registrars for information about a given domain.
The system is totally experimental -- perhaps it has bugs we don't know
about, it's certainly a little sluggish, and the formatting still leaves
something to be desired. We may not keep it up in the long term, but at
least for now we think it may be helpful.
I welcome any comments (on- or off-list) about the script, interface, or
concept in general. In particular, I'm interested in other Testbed
Registrars that are already accepting registrations and have WHOIS data
available about their registrations; if anyone knows of additional such
registrars, please send details.
The Experimental Cross-Registrar WHOIS is at
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/whois>.
Ben Edelman
Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Harvard Law School
