The Knowbot Information Service (KIS), also known as netaddress, is an Internet user

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

that debuted in December 1989. Although it searched users, not content, it could be argued to be the first

on the Internet as it queried more than a single network for information. It provided a uniform user interface to a variety of remote directory services such as

whois WHOIS (pronounced as the phrase "who is") is a query and response protocol that is used for querying databases that store an Internet resource's registered users or assignees. These resources include domain names, IP address blocks and autonomo ...

finger A finger is a prominent digit (anatomy), digit on the forelimbs of most tetrapod vertebrate animals, especially those with prehensile extremities (i.e. hands) such as humans and other primates. Most tetrapods have five digits (dactyly, pentadact ...

, X.500, and

MCI Mail MCI Mail was one of the first commercial email services in the United States and predates the widespread adoption of the Internet. History The MCI Mail service was launched on September 23, 1983, in Washington, D.C., during a press conference that ...

. By submitting a single query to KIS, a user can search a set of remote white pages services and see the results of the search in a uniform format. There are several interfaces to the KIS service including

e-mail Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

and

telnet Telnet (sometimes stylized TELNET) is a client-server application protocol that provides access to virtual terminals of remote systems on local area networks or the Internet. It is a protocol for bidirectional 8-bit communications. Its main ...

. Another KIS interface imitates the Berkeley whois command. KIS consists of two distinct types of modules that interact with each other (typically across a network) to provide the service. One module is a user agent module that runs on the KIS mail host machine. The second module is a remote server module (possibly on a different machine) that interrogates various database services across the network and provides the results to the user agent module in a uniform fashion. Interactions between the two modules can be via messages between knowbots or by actual movement of knowbots.

External links

*http://www.ou.edu/research/electron/internet/knowbot.htm *http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/home/koe/index.html Internet Protocol based network software 1989 software Internet search engines History of the Internet {{network-software-stub