.mil WHOIS offline?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: .mil WHOIS offline?
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 14:30:32 -0500
From: Jeff Porten <civitan () jeffporten com>
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>

For IP, if you wish.

I'm doing some routine maintenance on our mail server and tracking
back IP addresses with a database that queries various WHOIS
servers.  To my surprise, the .mil whois server at whois.nic.mil is
offline -- the domain itself doesn't resolve any longer.

I spoke to the very nice customer support representative at the phone
number I found on the web, who told me the following:

1) he wasn't sure if this service was *ever* public.  Which I find
interesting, as it's a coded flag in the whois man page.

2) he said I should refer all IPs I need to review directly to DoD CERT.

3) he said that he received many calls like this, and it's "always"
people spoofing the IP addresses of .mil computers.  I mentioned that
since I'm tracking spam flow, it's likely to be someone with a
legitimate .mil address and a compromised computer.  He referred me
again to CERT.

Anyway, this struck me as *very* odd, and I feel like I'm showing up
in the middle of the story.  Anyone know more about this?

Best,
Jeff



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