The use of the whois protocol to provide a look-up service for Internet infrastructure information is showing its age. Operators are experiencing increased demands for information through the whois service. From the needs of privacy, law enforcement, intellectual property rights, and referrals, new demands are being asked of this service. VeriSign is in the process of gathering requirements from the various whois user communities. Mark will present the process through which VeriSign is gathering these requirements, and the generalities of what is currently known about them.

In addition, VeriSign has been working on efforts to shift this look-up service away from whois to other, more capable protocols. Andrew will present VeriSign's two projects looking at replacing this service with a protocol other than whois: 1) VeriSign is piloting a project to replace whois with LDAP, and 2) a proposed XML-based directory protocol that mirrors much of the effort going into EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol).