Archive-name: finding-addresses Version: $Id: finding_addresses,v 1.17 91/10/28 19:32:30 jik Exp $ 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." Techniques *. College Email Addresses The posting entitled "College Email Addresses" in the soc.college newsgroup 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 that posting for the University or College in question and follow its instructions for finding out more. If the posting has expired at your site or has not been posted recently, you can get a copy of it using the instructions below (in the "Useful USENET postings" section). *. 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). No updated version of this posting has been posted recently, but you can get a copy of it using the instructions below. *. 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 pit-manager.mit.edu. To query the database, send an E-mail message to "mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu" with "send usenet-addresses/name" in the body or subject of the message, where "name" is either the first or last name of the person for whose address you are searching. Non-alphanumeric characters in names (such as apostrophes in Irish names) should be replaced with a period. For example, "send usenet-addresses/o.brien". The search will be done in a case-insensitive manner. 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. *. NIC.DDN.MIL 'whois' database The "whois" database on NIC.DDN.MIL contains the addresses of many military personnel, as well as the addresses of "prominent net.personalities." If your target is active on the Internet, he may be in the NIC database. If your system has the "whois" program, you can use that to query the NIC database. If not, but you have Internet access, you can telnet to nic.ddn.mil and run the command "whois" once you are logged in (help is available). If you do not have Internet access, you can send mail to "service@nic.ddn.mil" 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). *. IBM's directory of users 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 he/she does), then this might be useful to you. To use it, send mail to "nic@vnet.ibm.com" with the command "whois lastname firstname" or "whois lastname, firstname" in the subject or body of the message. If you use the former syntax, then both the last name and first name specified can be a prefix of the name rather than the entire name. If you use the latter syntax, the comma indicates that the last name is complete (but the first name is still only 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". *. Other directory services There are several other directory services you may be able to use to search for your target. First of all, 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 listserv@bitnic.bitnet (a.k.a listserv@bitnic.educom.edu) with the command "send bitnet servers" in the body of the message. RPI runs a white pages server for people interested in the field of communications. To find out how to use it, send mail to comserve@rpiecs.bitnet (or comserve@vm.ecs.rpi.edu) 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 netserv@bitnic.bitnet (again, bitnic.educom.edu can also be used) with "help" in the body of the message. *. 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. There are three main sources from which you can get host names. The first is the NIC "whois" database, which contains site and organization information as well as information about individuals. For more information about using it, see above. 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. The second is a network directory published by the University of Texas. 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. The third is the UUCP maps 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. 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. *. Knowbot Information Service The "Knowbot Information Service" (KIS) 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. Two hosts running KIS servers are nri.reston.va.us and sol.bucknell.edu. Either can be reached on the Internet via telnet at port 185 (e.g. "telnet nri.reston.va.us 185"), or via electronic mail to netaddress@host (e.g. netaddress@nri.reston.va.us). For more information about Knowbot, use the "man" command after connecting via telnet or in the body of your E-mail message. *. 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 he has an E-mail address, but he doesn't know what it is. If this happens to you, then give him your E-mail address and ask him to send you mail (and if he can't figure out how, tell him to get someone at his site to help). The odds are that when you get his message, it'll contain a valid return address in it. *. 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 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. *. 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. References If you want to learn more about computer networks and how they interact with each other, these books might be interesting and useful to you: !%@:: A Directory of Electronic Mail Addressing and Networks by Donnalyn Frey and Rick Adams ISBN 0-937175-15-3 (published by O'Reilly, E-mail nuts@ora.com) The matrix: computer networks and conferencing systems worldwide by John S. Quarterman ISBN 1-55558-033-5 Useful USENET Postings Subject: College Email Addresses Newsgroups: soc.college,soc.net-people Subject: Inter-Network Mail Guide Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc Subject: Tips on using soc.net-people [l/m 26/05/91] Newsgroups: soc.net-people Available via anonymous ftp from pit-manager.mit.edu (18.72.1.58) in the files /pub/usenet/soc.college/College_Email_Addresses /pub/usenet/comp.mail.misc/Inter-Network_Mail_Guide /pub/usenet/soc.net-people/Tips_on_using_soc.net-people_[l_m_26_05_91] Available from mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu by sending a mail message containing any or all of send usenet/soc.college/College_Email_Addresses send usenet/comp.mail.misc/Inter-Network_Mail_Guide send usenet/soc.net-people/Tips_on_using_soc.net-people_[l_m_26_05_91] Send a message containing "help" to get general information about the mail server. Credits Randall Atkinson , Mark Brader , Mark-Jason Dominus , Arthur K. Ho , Patrick Hoepfner , Jonathan Kochmer , Paul D. Nanson , Ellen Keyne Seebacher , Robert Ullmann , Peter M. Weiss , Bill Wohler and Peter J. Woodrow provided useful comments, information and/or suggestions. Jonathan Kamens jik@MIT.Edu MIT Information Systems/Athena Moderator, news.answers (Send news.answers-related correspondence to news-answers-request@MIT.Edu.)