Maybe OT, but surprising enough - On this link to a graphic printed in today's Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/12/20/GR2006122000... The #10 google search in the "Who Is" category (leading off with Borat, Hezbollah, EU, hot, ...) is "IP Who Is". I'm not sure what to make of that. Has google replaced the whois client? The article for the graphic is on this link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901... -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Edward Lewis +1-571-434-5468 NeuStar Dessert - aka Service Pack 1 for lunch.
Edward Lewis <Ed.Lewis@neustar.biz> writes:
The #10 google search in the "Who Is" category (leading off with Borat, Hezbollah, EU, hot, ...) is "IP Who Is".
I'm not sure what to make of that. Has google replaced the whois client?
Well, the article talks about people using "myspace" as a search term, when their goal is apparently to get to a web site. This seems to be a case of the same thing. I just tried a few variants of search to get whois data for a block that's assigned but not been used publicly (so as to avoid mail header hits etc) out of Google - no dice. If you search (literally) for "ip who is", though, the top hit is for the ARIN web-based whois, the second is for someone I'm not familiar with, the third for RIPE, the 7th for APNIC, etc. ARIN employee lurkers on the list would be better suited to giving us the stats, but my impression has been that the great unwashed masses have used the web forms in preference to the command line client for years now. ---Rob
On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:22:03 EST, "Robert E. Seastrom" said:
Well, the article talks about people using "myspace" as a search term, when their goal is apparently to get to a web site. This seems to be a case of the same thing.
And people wonder why simple concepts like "net neutrality" confuse people.. :)
Many people don't understand anything about how they access the Internet, they have a vague idea that they need to type a domain name into a box somewhere... so they type www.myspace.com into the Google search box, the result set pops up, and then they click on the first result to get to the web site in question... I've seen it more than once. Thomas Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
Edward Lewis <Ed.Lewis@neustar.biz> writes:
The #10 google search in the "Who Is" category (leading off with Borat, Hezbollah, EU, hot, ...) is "IP Who Is".
I'm not sure what to make of that. Has google replaced the whois client?
Well, the article talks about people using "myspace" as a search term, when their goal is apparently to get to a web site. This seems to be a case of the same thing.
I just tried a few variants of search to get whois data for a block that's assigned but not been used publicly (so as to avoid mail header hits etc) out of Google - no dice.
If you search (literally) for "ip who is", though, the top hit is for the ARIN web-based whois, the second is for someone I'm not familiar with, the third for RIPE, the 7th for APNIC, etc.
ARIN employee lurkers on the list would be better suited to giving us the stats, but my impression has been that the great unwashed masses have used the web forms in preference to the command line client for years now.
---Rob
At 19:31 -0800 12/20/06, Thomas Leavitt wrote:
Many people don't understand anything about how they access the Internet, they have a vague idea that they need to type a domain name into a box somewhere... so they type www.myspace.com into the Google search box, the result set pops up, and then they click on the first result to get to the web site in question... I've seen it more than once.
Thomas
Yeah, granted anyone looking for myspace might meet that demographic, but how many neophytes would use Google for a "IP Who Is" "search"? That's the listing I thought odd. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Edward Lewis +1-571-434-5468 NeuStar Dessert - aka Service Pack 1 for lunch.
On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 22:48:06 -0500 Edward Lewis <Ed.Lewis@neustar.biz> wrote:
Yeah, granted anyone looking for myspace might meet that demographic, but how many neophytes would use Google for a "IP Who Is" "search"? That's the listing I thought odd.
Maybe it's a script written and run by someone semi-clueful -- or too clueful to use a real whois server, which might notice the attempt to enumerate the space. Google undoubtedly knows in some sense but doesn't care. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
Hello; On Dec 20, 2006, at 11:20 PM, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 22:48:06 -0500 Edward Lewis <Ed.Lewis@neustar.biz> wrote:
Yeah, granted anyone looking for myspace might meet that demographic, but how many neophytes would use Google for a "IP Who Is" "search"? That's the listing I thought odd.
Maybe it's a script written and run by someone semi-clueful -- or too clueful to use a real whois server, which might notice the attempt to enumerate the space. Google undoubtedly knows in some sense but doesn't care.
Or, maybe it is just people looking for ip whois servers, since all of the returns "above the fold" for "ip who is" are to entities (ARIN, RIPE, etc) running whois servers (directly or as a pass through). Remember, this is a feedback system. If the people running the searches didn't ever click on ARIN, it wouldn't be kept at the top of the list for this query. And I found that googling "ip who is <ip address>" rarely returned anything useful. So I would conclude that there are a fair number of people using ip whois and using google to find servers, which is not that surprising. Regards Marshall
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
Edward Lewis <Ed.Lewis@neustar.biz> writes:
Yeah, granted anyone looking for myspace might meet that demographic, but how many neophytes would use Google for a "IP Who Is" "search"? That's the listing I thought odd.
There would be very few of them if it weren't for spam. ---rob
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Edward Lewis wrote:
Yeah, granted anyone looking for myspace might meet that demographic, but how many neophytes would use Google for a "IP Who Is" "search"? That's the listing I thought odd.
Having looked at the article isn't this a case of someone looking for an IP Whois tool rather than actually looking up IP addresses? - -- COO Entanet International T: 0870 770 9580 http://www.enta.net/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFFik3hR+KszLBLUT8RAhHjAJ414qga48FBbL0lhI1oq9KeVihUBACgo3p3 fXQJi2ZEEy2xINNCz3Jvht8= =vZP6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (7)
-
Edward Lewis -
James Blessing -
Marshall Eubanks -
Robert E. Seastrom -
Steven M. Bellovin -
Thomas Leavitt -
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