All, We have been experimenting with Instant Messaging as an interface for providing easier access to a route-server. (no longer need to telnet xyz or use annoying web forms). We have essentially created a BGP chat bot. You can reach it by adding AIM: bgpbotz ( or Jabber: bgpbotz@jabber.merit.edu) to your buddy list. Just type 'help' or '?' to get started or 'examples'. Most normal route-server queries are supported. You should be able to view routes from Merit's perspective by querying bgpbotz. We would really appreciate any feedback on this project. The website is at: http://software.merit.edu/bgpbotz As bgpbotz is essentially just a query interface to an underlying route-server we would be happpy to add your BGP feeds to our installation and make them available as "views" for other people to query. Please feel free to contact us if you are interested in setting this up. Alternately you can download the chat bot code from the website and run it yourself. In that case please let us know so that we can add your bot to the project website. All comments are welcome. Thanks Eric Wustrow Manish Karir (Merit Network Inc.)