I hate the new mail system

[Mouse]

>> And BTW, what you are doing is not clever at all:
>>   mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG
>>     SMTP error from remote mail server after initial connection:
>>     host MX-4.rodents-montreal.org [98.124.61.89]:
>>     550-.de's whois server, whois.denic.de, is completely broken, handing
>>     550-out no contact information at all when queried for .de domains in
>>     550 the usual way.  Such a domain has no place on a civilized network.

It's not supposed to be clever.  I'm just willing to call brokenness
brokenness.  That it's an entire country that's broken does not make it
any less broken.  Nor does it get them a pass on brokenness; if
anything, being big makes the offence greater - they have less excuse.

>> This is just wrong.  Of course they hand out contact information!

They didn't when I put that block in place, not without some
DENIC-specific option - and still don't; see below.  That's why I wrote
"when queried...in the usual way".

Since the whole point of WHOIS is to find data on domains you don't
know things about, requiring some idiosyncratic option is, IMO, broken.

Here's what I see, run while composing this mail:

[Sparkle] 1> whois -h whois.denic.de uni-stuttgart.de
Domain: uni-stuttgart.de
Status: connect
[Sparkle] 2> 

or

[Sparkle] 3> telnet whois.denic.de whois
Trying 81.91.170.6...
Connected to whois.denic.de.
Escape character is '^]'.
uni-stuttgart.de
Domain: uni-stuttgart.de
Status: connect
Connection closed by foreign host.
[Sparkle] 4> 

Maybe you consider that to be contact information.  I don't.

> $ whois -h whois.denic.de uni-stuttgart.de
> % Error: 55000000007 Request not clearly specified

I don't know what's going on here.  The only way I've got that is to
query for "-r uni-stuttgart.de".  I know some whois clients
automatically try to add the DENIC-specific option I mentioned above;
perhaps yours is, but DENIC has changed and no longer accepts it?  (IMO
that would be, if anything, even more broken.)

> $ telnet whois.denic.de 43
> Trying 81.91.170.6...
> Connected to whois.denic.de.
> Escape character is '^]'.
> whois -r uni-stuttgart.de
> % Error: 55000000007 Request not clearly specified
> Connection closed by foreign host.
> $

> That's broken.

In that case, it's the query that's broken.  The normal way to use
whois for domains is to send just the domain name upon connecting; the
"whois -r " prefix you used is probably responsible.

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