Email FAQ
A question which appears frequently on the USENET is, "I know someone's name, and I think they might have an electronic mail address somewhere. How can I find it?"
There are many different techniques for doing this. Several of them are discussed below. Your best bet is to try the pertinent methods in this posting in the order in which they are listed (well, sort of; at the very least, please try all the pertinent methods which do not involve posting queries to soc.net-people before resorting to that).
I've listed "Direct contact" near the end of this list because, for some reason, people seem to be reluctant to call people on the telephone or write them a paper-mail letter asking what their E-mail address is, as long as there is even a remote chance that it might be found without asking. This attitude is somewhat counterproductive, since in most cases, it is much easier to get someone's E-mail address by asking them than it is by following the other methods outlined below. Furthermore, even if you do manage to find an E-mail address using one of the on-line methods described below, it is not guaranteed that the person at the other end of the line checks that address regularly or even that it is the correct address.
Therefore, if you do have a telephone number that isn't too expensive to call, or if you have a paper-mail address and aren't in too much of a hurry, you can probably save yourself a lot of trouble by skipping all of the on-line methods listed below and going directly to "Direct contact."
It is considered rude to widely distribute (e.g., in a Usenet posting) a person's E-mail address without his prior consent, even if the address is publicly available using one of the techniques described below or some other technique.
It might seem that having one's E-mail address listed in a publicly accessible database is equivalent to distributing it, but this is not the case in practice, for three primary reasons:
* Some people may not be aware that their addresses are available for others to locate. For example, the majority of Usenet posters are unaware of the database of Usenet E-mail addresses mentioned below.
* When some effort is required to locate a person's address (e.g., using the techniques described below), only people who have a specific reason to send mail to him will go to the trouble. However, if the address is mentioned in a Usenet posting read by thousands of people, no effort is required to obtain it, and many more people will send him mail. Most people with E-mail addresses are not accustomed to receiving E-mail from strangers or large amounts of E-mail, and they may not be happy if they do.
* As unwanted E-mail becomes more common, people will start to remove their addresses from public databases, which means that it will become more difficult to find people's addresses for legitimate reasons.
In summary, if you want to advertise someone's E-mail address, get his permission before you do it. Besides, if you're going to advertise an address, it's a good idea to make sure it works first, and writing to it for permission is a good way to do that.
Many of the on-line methods for finding addresses documented below are easily accessible, with a consistent user interface, from the Internet Gopher burrow at the University of Minnesota. If you are on the Internet, you may want to try using Gopher to do your searching before going directly to any of the methods described below. Ask someone at your site to find out if Gopher clients are installed there. Or, to find out how to use it and/or install it yourself, see the comp.infosystems.gopher FAQ posting, a pointer to which is located at the end of this message.
The postings whose subjects start with "FAQ: College Email Addresses" in the soc.college newsgroup describe the account and E-mail address policies for graduate and undergraduate students at many universities and colleges. If you are looking for a university/college student, check those postings for the university or college in question and follow their instructions for finding out more.
If the postings have expired at your site or has not been posted recently, you can get a copy of them using the instructions below (in the "Useful USENET postings" section).
If you know which network/service your target has an account on (e.g. CompuServe, Fidonet), then the "Inter-Network Mail Guide" posting in comp.mail.misc *may* be able to provide you with some help, although it probably will not be particularly helpful unless you have some sort of address to start with (a small number of networks use full names as addresses, and the posting mentions when this is the case, but it doesn't apply in very many cases).
See the instructions below for getting a copy of this posting if it isn't available in comp.mail.misc at your site.
If you think that your target may be on the USENET and may have posted a message to the USENET at some point in the past, you might be able to find his/her address in the USENET address database on the machine rtfm.mit.edu.
To query the database, send an E-mail message to "mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu" with "send usenet-addresses/name" in the body of the message. The "name" should be one or more space-separated words for which you want to search; since the search is fuzzy (i.e., all of the words you specify do not have to match), you should list all of the words you think might appear in the address, including (for example) first and last name, possible username, and possible components of the host name (e.g. "mit" for a person who you think is at MIT). The case and order of the words you list are ignored.
Note that multiple requests can appear (on separate lines) in mail to the mail server, but each request will be answered in a separate message.
In many cases, you will get a list of quite a few matching addresses, and you will have to go through it looking for ones that may be the one you're looking for. However, the mail server will return a maximum of only 40 matches.
Note that the usenet-addresses database is accessible via WAIS (in fact, the script that does mail server searches is actually just a front-end to a WAIS database) on two different hosts: rtfm.mit.edu and cedar.cic.net. In both cases, the database is called "usenet-addresses" and is on port 210. Note that the version on rtfm is slightly more up-to-date with respect to the master address list than the version on cedar. If you don't know what WAIS is, then don't worry about this paragraph; if you're curious, see the "comp.infosystems.wais" newsgroup.
For more details about how to use the database, send the command "send usenet-addresses/help".
The "whois" database on NIC.DDN.MIL contains the addresses of many military personnel. It also used to contain the addresses of some administrators of non-military networks and of some "prominent net.personalities," but those have now been moved to the "whois" database on WHOIS.INTERNIC.NET. If your target is active on the Internet, he may be in one of these NICs' databases.
If your system has the "whois" program, you can use that to query a NIC database. If not, but you have Internet access, you can telnet to nic.ddn.mil (whois.internic.net) and run the command "whois" once you are logged in (help is available). Alternatively, you can issue a single command to the nic.ddn.mil (whois.internic.net) whois server by typing "telnet nic.ddn.mil whois" ("telnet whois.internic.net whois") in order to connect to it and then typing the command and hitting return; the "help" command will return several screens full of text, so if you need help, you should use a utility such as "tee" or "script" to capture the help message and save it for future reference. If you do not have Internet access, you can send mail to "service@nic.ddn.mil" ("whois@whois.internic.net") to query the "whois" database; send a message with "help" in the body to find out more information.
Note, furthermore, that some sites run local "whois" databases to provide information about people inside their organizations. The only way to find out if your site runs such a database is to ask someone locally about it (see "Get more help locally" below), and the only way to find out about such databases at other sites (assuming, of course, that those databases are not mentioned in any of the other sources listed in this document) is to contact responsible individuals at those sites and ask (see "Finding a host name and asking someone there for help" below).
Quite a few other sites also run "whois" databases that can be connected to over the Internet using the whois protocol (using either the "whois" program or "telnet hostname whois" as described in the previous section). Some of those sites are listed here, and others are listed in a separate list, described in more detail below.
The Ohio State University runs a "whois" database (on the machine "osu.edu") that has all of the faculty, staff, and students listed. It responds to "whois" queries in the normal fashion, or you can just send mail to firstname.lastname@osu.edu and it will try to deliver e-mail if the person has registered an e-mail address. You can also telnet to osu.edu and look-up a person. If you are unsure of the spelling this is a good way, as it does a soundex type search so exact matches are not necessary. No password is necessary.
RIPE (a cooperative group of several European Internet providers) runs a "whois" database, with RIPE information, on "whois.ripe.net"; it is a European counterpart to "whois.internic.net".
Matt H. Power of MIT In addition to E-mail addresses for individuals, "whois" servers
often also contain contact information about domains. For example,
asking whois.internic.net's server for information about "mit.edu"
would tell you to look up "mit-dom" in order to get information about
MIT's domain, and doing that would give you contact information about
the people responsible for administrating that domain, including the
handles of those individuals, which you can then look up to get still
more information about them.
There are several other directory services you may be able to use to
search for your target.
Many Bitnet sites have name servers that can be queried in one way
or another. To get a list of them with documentation, send a mail
message to listserv@bitnic.bitnet (a.k.a listserv@bitnic.educom.edu)
with the command "send bitnet servers" in the body of the message.
The IBM Corporate Internet Gateway provides a directory of users
(which I believe contains only IBM employees, although I'm not
certain) that is available to anyone who can send E-mail to it. If
your target works for IBM (or you suspect he/she does), then this
might be useful to you.
To use it, send mail to "nic@vnet.ibm.com" with the command "whois
lastname, firstname" in the subject or body of the message. If you
are unsure of the spelling of the last name, use an asterisk (*) to
indicate that the last name should be treated as a prefix, rather than
a complete name. The first name is always treated as a prefix. For
example, "whois Smith*, R" would return all people with a last name
starting with "Smith" and a first name starting with "R", while "whois
Smith, R" would return only those people with exactly the last name
"Smith" and a first name starting with "R".
Users of the directory are limited to 25 name searches per day.
Each name that results is counted as a separate name search. For
example, a single "whois Smith, R" that found Rodger Smith, Robert
Smith, and Reginald Smith would count as three name searches.
Multiple requests may be made in a single note provided that the
number of names found does not exceed the daily limit of 25.
If you know the organization, company, or whatever at which your
target's account is likely to be located, then you might be able to
get your hands on the host name of a machine at that location. Once
you've done that, you can usually write to someone responsible for
E-mail support at the site and ask for help finding the address you
are seeking.
There are three main sources from which you can get host names. The
first is the NIC "whois" database, which contains site and
organization information as well as information about individuals.
For more information about using it, see above. Organization entries
in the NIC database will usually list an administrative, technical
and/or zone contact person, with his/her address, to whom you can
write. You can also write to "postmaster" at almost any Internet
host to get in touch with someone responsible for E-mail.
The second is a network directory published by the University of
Texas. Although it hasn't been updated in a few years, it still
provides a useful list of many site names. It is available for
anonymous ftp from several different locations, including
/net.directory/1988.netbook on emx.utexas.edu. It is BIG, so you
might not have room to store it locally, unless you ask someone in
charge to set up some space for it. You should NOT transfer it to
/tmp every time you need it, or something like that; that's a horrible
waste of network bandwidth. Contact people are usually listed in the
site entries in the net directory, but you might want to try
"postmaster" first. This directory is superseded by the book "The
user's directory of computer networks," whose bibliography information
is provided in the "References" section below. Of course, you have to
pay for the book, and you can't grep dead trees, but it's probably
more up-to-date than the University of Texas directory.
The third is the UUCP maps in the comp.mail.maps newsgroup. See the
posting "UUCP map for README" in that directory for more information.
You can grep in the news spool or use your news reader's search
facilities to search for a particular string (e.g. an organization
name) in the comp.mail.maps postings. Each UUCP map entry lists the
contact person for the entry. You can also search the UUCP maps by
connecting to the "uumap" WAIS database on port 210 of wais.cic.net.
For more information about WAIS, see above.
You can also search UUCP maps using the University of California at
Berkeley's Netinfo service (which also supports other services, such
as looking up IP addresses for hosts on the Internet). You connect to
it at port 117 of netinfo.berkeley.edu, e.g. on some systems, "telnet
netinfo.berkeley.edu 117". The "ufind", "ufile", "uhost" and "upath"
commands are used to look up information in the UUCP maps. For more
information about Netinfo, connect to it and type "?".
Once you've got a host name and the person to contact, you need to
figure out how to get the mail there, if it's on a network you don't
know how to reach. See the "Inter-Network Mail Guide" posting
referenced above if you need help with that.
If you do go this route, make sure you provide as much information
as you can about the person whose address you are seeking; remember
that the more detailed (and polite!) you are, the more likely it is
that the person you are contacting will be able to help you.
Remember, too, that the person you are contacting is probably very
busy, and responding to requests like yours is probably not one of
his/her highest priorities, so be patient.
If you've found a potential host name for your target using one of
the other methods described here, and if you have direct access to the
Internet, then you may be able to use the "finger" program/protocol to
look up your target at a remote site. Many sites support finger
servers that will do first-name, last-name and/or user-name searches
through their user space. For example, the machine "mit.edu" supports
a directory of all staff and students at MIT; that directory can be
searched using finger by last name or by user name, and other
parameters can be used to restrict the search as well.
To finger someone at another site, you generally type "finger
name@host". If this doesn't work for you, you should check with
someone locally to find more more information about if it's possible
to finger from your site, and if so, how to do it.
Netfind is a "white pages" service that allows you to query one
service and have it search several other address databases of various
sorts for addresses matching your query. It is a program for SunOS
workstations and requires your computer to be directly connected to
the Internet. The source code is available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.cs.colorado.edu, in pub/cs/distribs/netfind.
People without a Sun on which to run Netfind on can telnet to any of
the following Netfind servers and log in as "netfind" (with no
password):
There is a mailing list where new releases of netfind will be
announced; you can subscribe by sending mail to
netfind-users-request@cs.colorado.edu.
Netfind was developed by Mike Schwartz The "Knowbot Information Service" (KIS) is another white pages
service.
Two hosts running KIS servers are info.cnri.reston.va.us and
regulus.cs.bucknell.edu. Either can be reached on the Internet via
telnet at port 185 (e.g. "telnet info.cnri.reston.va.us 185"), or via
electronic mail (kis@cnri.reston.va.us or
netaddress@regulus.cs.bucknell.edu). For more information about
Knowbot, use the "man" command after connecting via telnet or in the
body of your E-mail message. In addition, info.cnri.reston.va.us' KIS
server can be reached using the Internet "whois" protocol described
above.
Many sites around the network are running the VM/CMS LISTSERV
package for managing mailing lists. If you have some reason to
believe that a particular user may be a member of a mailing list on a
LISTSERV site, you can ask that LISTSERV to send you a membership list
and search it for your target.
To do this, send mail to listserv@host (if "host" is a BITNET host,
try using listserv@host.bitnet; if that doesn't work, you'll have to
ask someone at your site how to send mail tol BITNET hosts). In the
body of your message, include the command "review list-name", where
"list-name" is the name of the mailing list you wish to search.
If you don't know what LISTSERV is and dont' know of any LISTSERV
sites or mailing lists, then this technique probably isn't worth
bothering with.
If you have a paper mail address or telephone number for your
target, call them or write to them and ask for an E-mail address.
In that case, you might encounter the somewhat common situation
where your target knows he has an E-mail address, but he doesn't know
what it is. If this happens to you, then give him your E-mail address
and ask him to send you mail (and if he can't figure out how, tell him
to get someone at his site to help). The odds are that when you get
his message, it'll contain a valid return address in it.
Often, the postmaster at your site (or whomever is responsible at
your site for answering mail-related questions) has a large amount of
knowledge that will help him to help you find the answer to your
question. If you have been unable to find the answer for yourself,
check with people locally and see if one of them can help you out.
If all the methods above have failed, you can consider posting a
message to soc.net-people asking for help locating your target.
Before doing so, however, you should read the "Tips on using
soc.net-people" posting in that newsgroup. If it has expired, you can
get a copy using the instructions below (note that the name in the
instructions below may change when a new version with a new date is
posted, so you may need to ask for an index of the soc.net-people
archive to find out the name of the most recent version).
Note that this is listed as THE last resort, to be tried even later
than using a telephone number or paper mail address. Any posting to
the USENET uses the resources of the sites on the USENET and of the
networks that carry it; certainly, the total cost of transporting a
USENET message is more than the cost of a stamp or a short phone call.
Since the benefit gained is to you and not to the USENET as a
whole, you should avoid posting if you possibly can.
If you want to learn more about computer networks and how they
interact with each other, these books and articles might be
interesting and useful to you:
!%@:: A Directory of Electronic Mail Addressing & Networks
by Donnalyn Frey and Rick Adams
ISBN 1-56592-031-7
(published by O'Reilly, E-mail nuts@ora.com)
(current edition published in August 1993; $24.95 cover
price)
The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide, by
John S. Quarterman, Digital Press, Bedford, MA, 1990. $50.
Digital order number EY-C176E-DP-SS, Digital Press ISBN
155558-033-5, Prentice-Hall ISBN 0-13-565607-9.
"Strategies for Finding People on Networks,'' by John S. Quarterman,
Matrix News, Vol. 1, No. 6, pg. 3, Matrix Information and
Directory Services, Austin, Texas, September 1991.
The user's directory of computer networks, ed. Tracy L. LaQuey,
Digital Press, Bedford, MA, 1990. Digital order number
EY-C200E-DP, ISBN 1-55558-047-5.
Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide, by Brendan Kehoe,
Prentice Hall, July 1992. ISBN 0-13-010778-6. (This is the
second edition. The first edition is available for free
on-line. Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide)
Subject: Gopher (comp.infosystems.gopher) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gopher,news.answers
Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 1/3 [Monthly posting] Available in the indicated USENET newsgroup(s), or via anonymous ftp from
rtfm.mit.edu (18.70.0.209) in the files: Comments about, suggestions about or corrections to this posting are
welcomed. If you would like to ask me to change this posting in some
way, the method I appreciate most is for you to actually make the
desired modifications to a copy of this FAQ and email it to me.
Other directory services
Finding a host name and asking someone there for help
Using "finger"
Netfind
Knowbot Information Service
Searching LISTSERV mailing lists
Direct contact
Get more help locally
The last resort -- soc.net-people
References
Useful USENET Postings
Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 2/3 [Monthly posting]
Subject: FAQ: College Email Addresses 3/3 [Monthly posting]
Newsgroups: soc.college,soc.net-people,news.answers
Subject: Updated Inter-Network Mail Guide
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,alt.bbs.lists,alt.internet.services,comp.misc,comp.answers,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: Tips on using soc.net-people [l.m. 13/09/92]
Newsgroups: soc.net-people
[Same as above -- check the archives for a newer version if
this one isn't available.]
/pub/usenet/news.answers/gopher-faq
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part2
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part3
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/inter-network-guide
/pub/usenet/soc.net-people/Tips_on_using_soc.net-people_[l.m._13_09_92]
Also available from mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu by sending a mail message
containing any or all of:
send usenet/news.answers/gopher-faq
send usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part1
send usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part2
send usenet/news.answers/mail/college-email/part3
send usenet/news.answers/mail/inter-network-guide
send usenet/soc.net-people/Tips_on_using_soc.net-people_[l.m._13_09_92]
Send a message containing "help" to get general information about the
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