The New York Times Bits blog notes that the whois database may soon be gone. Being listed in whois is definitely a spam and junk mail magnet, but it remains the best way to track down many kinds of impostors, fraudsters, and online lowlifes. I’ll be sad to see it go. There was always something nice about the idea that if you had a problem with a host at a certain domain, you could look up the domain’s owner and shoot them an email to ask what’s up.