Re: Notice to Mariners: loss of navigational aids ("whois consultations")

> ps.  hint:  the IETF is about standards for global interoperability, not 
> isolated utility.

whois port 43 is interoperable globally.  applications which use it
may not be.  similarly, just because two applications both use tcp
does not mean that you can connect an ssh client to an ftp server
stick an msword document in one end and get tex out the other.

at least the format of the data ripe produces in response to a whois
query is that of an ietf (proposed) standard.

randy