Thanks to all who responded privately off-list. What I was looking for: http://registro.br/cgi-bin/nicbr/whois ..which wasn't exactly intuitive from the main page: http://registro.br/index.html Also, I liked the alternative suggestion of: telnet rwhois.whatever.foo 4321 <enter dotted quad or other item of interest> ..however, one thing that I didn't mention in my original post is that what I was looking for was a _simple_ method for our staff to use which didn't require a maze of thought challenges (or a Captain Midnight Decoder Ring) -- something they could just point a web broswer at and find correct contact information for IP reallocation data. Unfortunately, everyone in a particluar organization has access to a CLI WHOIS client, or even a Windoze WHOIS client that provides detailed information with a variety of options. Is it the case that SPAM purveyors have put us in the unfortunate position where there isn't readily available access to SWIP/reallocation information? What a shame. Thanks to one and all, - ferg -- "Fergie (Paul Ferguson)" <fergdawg@netzero.net> wrote: Can anyone provide a better way to find, say, the appropriate contact information for address blocks that are further rellocated from the regional registries? I've about reached my frustration levels over the course of the past year on the issue. Example: Trying to find the approriate contact info for an abuse@ address responsible for a malicious host that (may) reside within an address block in Brazil (not meaning to pick on Brazil by no means). Checking the WHOIS database at: http://lacnic.net/cgi-bin/lacnic/whois?lg=EN ...you can find that: #These addresses have been further assigned to Brazilian users. #Contact information can be found at the WHOIS server located #at whois.registro.br and at http://whois.nic.br No, it can't. At least not that I can ascertain. And when arriving at either of these web pages, the only lookup available to the user is a CGI form for domain-only registry lookups, not for IP address allocation info. I was also hoping that the Referral WHOIS (RWhois) database might provide some assiatance, I am informed only that the responsible registry is the Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry. I have tried many times to solicit a response via e-mail from someone at the Brazilian registry to no avail. Very frustrating. The system is broken and needs to be fixed. Registries: Are you listening? - ferg -- "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson Engineering Architecture for the Internet fergdawg@netzero.net or fergdawg@sbcglobal.net