A Michael F. Schwartz 

A Panagiotis G. Tsirigotis 

T Experience with a Semantically Cognizant Internet White Pages
 Directory Tool
 
J Journal of Internetworking Research and Experience 
D March 1991 
P 23-50 
K Netfind 
X Available from
ftp:ftp.cs.colorado.edupubcstechreportsschwartzWhite.Pages.ps.Z
or
ftp:ftp.cs.colorado.edupubcstechreportsschwartzWhite.Pages.txt.Z 

X Note: the Netfind prototype is available from
ftp:ftp.cs.colorado.edupubcsdistribsnetfind.  You can use the
University of Colorado Netfind server by telnet to
bruno.cs.colorado.edu and logging in as "netfind" (with no
password). 

X Abstract: "As wide area networking technology and
interconnection improve, an increasingly important problem is
allowing users to navigate through the vast array of network
accessible resources.  In this paper we discuss experience with
one technique we have developed in this regard, applied to a
specific resource class.  We have built a prototype tool that
provides a simple Internet "white pages" directory facility.
Given the name of a user and a rough description of where the
user works (e.g., the company name or city), the tool attempts to
locate telephone and electronic mailbox information about that
user.  Measurements indicate that the scope of the directory is
upwards of 1,147,000 users in 1,929 administrative domains, yet
the tool does not require the type of global cooperation that
many existing or proposed directory services require, namely,
running special directory servers at many sites around the
Internet.  We accomplish this by building an understanding of the
semantics of this particular resoce discovery application into
the algorithms that support searches, allowing the tool to make
aggressive use of existing sources of relatively unstructured
information.  Being able to make use of such information is
important in heterogeneous, administratively decentralized
environments, where global agreement about highly structured
information formats is difficult to achieve.  At present, the
tool utilizes information from USENET news messages, the Domain
Naming System, the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, and the
"finger" protocol, as well as a variety of information about the
meaning of and relationships between these information sources. 
Other sources of resource information (such as the CCITT X.500
directory service) can easily be incorporated into the tool as
they become available.  The tool achieves good response time
through the use of parallel queries."