telnet rules

A fact often missed by people too-used to web sites is that most services on the internet have underlying protocols. For example, if I want to do internic search on a domain name, I could google for a service that does just that; but I can just as easily get the information myself from port 43 of internic.net

Instructions:
telnet internic.net 43
type: =blogger.com
and you get (truncated):
Domain Name: BLOGGER.COM
Registrar: EMARKMONITOR IC. DBA MARKMONITOR
Whois Server: whois.markmonitor.com
Referral URL: http://www.markmonitor.com
Name Server: NS2.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS1.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS3.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS4.GOOGLE.COM
Status: REGISTRAR LOCK
Updated Date: 22-jul-2005
Creation Date: 22-jun-1999
Expiration Date: 22-jun-2011

now, wasn't this easy?