Subject: Re: bug#47431: Process Whois connection broken by remote peer.

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2021 15:39:09 +0200

Gregory Heytings <[email-masked]> writes:

>> We accept that users will query whois.iana.org port 43 for ad-hoc,
>> infrequent, and low volume queries (e.g. queries resulting from a
>> user-driven web form, upon receipt of an email, and given a small
>> list of domains).
>>
>> It reads like your client will be primarily user-driven and so we're
>> fine with your approach. Note, the Mac OSX whois client first
>> queries whois.iana.org and follows the referral, so there is
>> precedent.
>
> So from a technical point of view, the solution is okay.  What remains
> is the potential privacy problem, but I think it's possible to avoid
> it without using a cache.

I don't think there's an expectation of privacy here -- the user knows
that doing a whois query will result in server(s) being queried.

So I think whois.el should be rewritten to do the two step query (and be
asynchronous, which should be pretty trivial).

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no