Chapter 6: Telnet (5 of 6) -- FINDING SOMEONE ON THE NET

     So you have a friend and you want to find out if he has an Internet
account to which you can write?  The quickest way may be to just pick up
the phone, call him and ask him.  Although there are a variety of "white
pages" services available on the Internet, they are far from complete --
college students, users of commercial services such as CompuServe and
many Internet public-access sites, and many others simply won't be
listed.  Major e-mail providers are working on a universal directory
system, but that could be some time away.
     In the meantime, a couple of "white pages" services might give you
some leads, or even just entertain you as you look up famous people or
long-lost acquaintances.
     The whois directory provides names, e-mail and postal mail address
and often phone numbers for people listed in it.  To use it, telnet to

     internic.net

No log-on is needed.  The quickest way to use it is to type

     whois name

at the prompt, where "name" is the last name or organization name you're
looking for.
     Another service worth trying is the "knowbot" system reachable by
telnet to

     nri.reston.va.us 185

Again, no log-on is needed.  This service actually searches through a
variety of other "white pages" systems, including the user directory for
MCIMail.  To look for somebody, type

     query name

where "name" is the last name of the person you're looking for.  You can
get details of other commands by hitting a question mark at the prompt.