RFC 1588 (rfc1588) - Page 1 of 35
White Pages Meeting Report
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group J. Postel
Request for Comments: 1588 C. Anderson
Category: Informational ISI
February 1994
WHITE PAGES MEETING REPORT
STATUS OF THIS MEMO
This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
this memo is unlimited.
INTRODUCTION
This report describes the results of a meeting held at the November
IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) in Houston, TX, on November 2,
1993, to discuss the future of and approaches to a white pages
directory services for the Internet.
As proposed to the National Science Foundation (NSF), USC/Information
Sciences Institute (ISI) conducted the meeting to discuss the
viability of the X.500 directory as a practical approach to providing
white pages service for the Internet in the near future and to
identify and discuss any alternatives.
An electronic mail mailing list was organized and discussions were
held via email for two weeks prior to the meeting.
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is organized around four questions:
1) What functions should a white pages directory perform?
There are two functions the white pages service must provide:
searching and retrieving.
Searching is the ability to find people given some fuzzy
information about them. Such as "Find the Postel in southern
California". Searches may often return a list of matches.
While the idea of indexing has been around for some time, such as
the IN-ADDR tree in the Domain Name System (DNS), a new
acknowledgment of its importance has emerged from these
Postel & Anderson
