How can I find out to what institution an Internet domain belonged to?

Question

…if that domain is not registered/active anymore?
I am trying to find out to what institution the domain “icu.fla.edu” belonged to, or at least the “fla.edu”.

A long time ago, maybe about 10 years ago, e-mail addresses ending in “@icu.fla.edu” or “@fla.edu” were quite common, but that institution maybe changed names, changed the Internet domain, or do not exists anymore. But still I would like to find out.
Because of the “.edu”, it must be some kind of educational institution like a University or something. The “fla” maybe suggests Florida because of the “f”??? And the “icu” must be an institution inside the “fla” institution.
As last resort, there must be records somewhere, maybe some kind of Internet domain authority or something. I mean, contacting all accredited domain registrars, and ask them “Was this domain registered with you, and if so what was the WHOIS?” is not practical and there is the possibility the registrar may not exist anymore.
THANK YOU.

WHOIS do not work because the domain is no longer registered/active.

In one of my searches, I was very lucky to found out this very old link http://www.acraretail.org/ACRA%20files/Directory.html listing “ACRA members” of many Universities, the members e-mails are listed in the format “person_name@university_domain”, so now I know that “fla.edu” was “Florida Atlantic University” and currently is “fau.edu”!
About the “icu” sub-domain, I am waiting a reply from them.
Thank you all.

Answer 1

I did a few 'net searches on the domain "fla.edu" and the closest I have come is a domain that does not have a presence at the top level http://www.fla.edu.br . The "fla" stands for "Faculdade Latino America" and seems to be a sort of portal for logging in to a system: http://www.fla.edu.br/ILANWeb/(2cujbqjcmbrrby55kqgv2x45)/Default.aspx was the link I found . Also, I found references to email addresses with the "fla.edu" domain on SPAM lists from several years ago. This is as close as I have been able to come, and it is possible, if you received email with this domain address, it could have been forwarded from a SPAM list.

Also, I found references to subdomains shark.cs.fla.edu and wasp.eng.fla.edu (the latter was from an archived list from 1993 that also included a reference to another site: ftp.uwp.edu . ) It is possible the fla.edu site also contained public domain files as did the ftp site. No info on who owned it though.

More info: You certainly have given us a poser! None of the whois or DNS lookup systems or ping have worked on this domain. I've found a reference to a message board that tells of one user's IP pinging to the domain www.fla.edu . This was in mid 2006; the other users are complaining that the domain doesn't exist. Perhaps it is a sort of DNS alias that only certain services or chosen IP's can access or see. And if someone's pinging from there in mid-2006, maybe it is running as some sort of private domain. (Or it could be a tempest in a teapot and whoever pinged the user could have been mistaken).

Also a reference on this site: http://idrinfo.idrc.ca/archive/corpdocs/094665/026445b.htm , if correct, shows an example email to a colleague at the University of Florida having the ag.fla.edu subdomain. Perhaps it was an earlier domain for UF? (It is ufl.edu now).

This site apparently tested the fla.edu domain and found it ok but gives no info on it: http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/fla.edu/

I really should be working now, but somehow I couldn't resist another search...good luck!

BTW, last addendum, I promise: a site I have used that does give stats and owner information for running domains is: http://www.senderbase.org . Yours did not show activity or give a network owner, but for other domains that are less difficult, perhaps this will help.

Answer 2

As others have already said -- it appears there is no "whois" info for the domain in question. However -- you can also do whois lookups on IP address's.
You can get the IP address by going to a command prompt on your PC and typing "ping fla.edu".

your computer will then find the IP address, and send a few test signals to see if it can successfully "talk" to it. Point is, it tells you the IP address it found for the domain. Which is 209.86.66.92. (BTW you will also notice that it says it's pinging a different domain -- this is because Many different domains can point to the same IP address -- but every IP address is only linked to 1 domain. So the ping really finds the IP for the domain you specify, then finds the "official" domain for that IP.


You can then go to dnsstuff.com and do a "REVERSE DNS lookup", to find a whois record for the IP Address. This is not necessarily who owns the domain, but it's a good start.
It could just be a hosting service that whoever owns fla.edu used, when they had a web site up. But you could prolly at least, try some of the contact emails or phone numbers to see if you can get more info.

HERE’S THE WHOIS INFO FOR THE IP ADDRESS, THAT FLA.EDU POINTS TO.

==============================================
OrgName: EarthLink, Inc.
OrgID: ERMS
Address: 1375 PEACHTREE ST, LEVEL A
City: ATLANTA
StateProv: GA
PostalCode: 30309
Country: US

NetRange: 209.86.0.0 - 209.86.255.255
CIDR: 209.86.0.0/16
NetName: EARTHLINK2000-E
NetHandle: NET-209-86-0-0-1
Parent: NET-209-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: ITCHY.MINDSPRING.NET
NameServer: SCRATCHY.MINDSPRING.NET
Comment:
RegDate: 2000-04-20
Updated: 2000-04-20

RTechHandle: DAE4-ARIN
RTechName: Domain Administrator, Administrator
RTechPhone: [phone]
RTechEmail: [e-mail]

OrgAbuseHandle: ABUSE60-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: ABUSE TEAM
OrgAbusePhone: [phone]
OrgAbuseEmail: [e-mail]

OrgTechHandle: ELNK-ORG-ARIN
OrgTechName: EarthLink, Inc.
OrgTechPhone: [phone]
OrgTechEmail: [e-mail]

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-12-17 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

Answer 3

Try typing the website URL in "The Wayback Machine", which is an internet archive for most websites for the past years.

http://www.archive.org/index.php

It's a really cool tool, it shows you how did websites look like years ago.
The fla.edu termination shows you that it probably was an education-related institution in the state of Florida.

If you don't have luck with the internet archive, try with a google search... you might find some referals to the old site, links, or maybe even a cached version of the site.

Answer 4

The domain is not registered, I checked the whois, the internet archive way back machine and there is nothing, not even fla.edu, the closest thing I can find are these results:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-&p=email%2c%20fla.edu

which looks like they come from different organizations Future Leaders of America, the letters of the names of them make up the FLA not the state of Florida, FL would be for educational addressed, fl.edu.

Answer 5

.edu domain name registration is limited to fully accredited postsecondary institutions of higher learning, such as four-year colleges, and is, for the most part limited to schools located in the United States. All .edu domain name registrations are handled exclusively by EDUCAUSE (http://www.educause.edu/edudomain/). The domain name that you specified does not show a current registration, and I don't believe that you can find historical registration information for a non-functioning domain online.

Answer 6

"fla.edu" does indicate it is part of the Florida education system in some way.... "icu" might indicate a hospital, as in the "intensive care unit" of a hospital... Therefore, I suspect if FL or FL State Univ. has a hospital, that would be where it came from. A teaching hospital is often associated with universities... E.G., Univ. of KY has a Univ. Of Ky. hospital, and Univ. of Louisville has a Humana Hospital University which is tied in with it as a teaching hospital. Might try that area first.

Answer 7

Don't know if this will help but this is a pretty cool web site: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
The website will show you what an internet page looked like years ago. It may help you find some information.

Answer 8

it sounds like a Florida college/university. Maybe those people were students? I ran a check on easywhois.org:
fla.edu whois record

This Registry database contains ONLY .EDU domains.
The data in the EDUCAUSE Whois database is provided
by EDUCAUSE for information purposes in order to
assist in the process of obtaining information about
or related to .edu domain registration records.

The EDUCAUSE Whois database is authoritative for the
.EDU domain.

A Web interface for the .EDU EDUCAUSE Whois Server is
available at: http://whois.educause.net

By submitting a Whois query, you agree that this information
will not be used to allow, enable, or otherwise support
the transmission of unsolicited commercial advertising or
solicitations via e-mail. The use of electronic processes to
harvest information from this server is generally prohibited
except as reasonably necessary to register or modify .edu
domain names.

You may use "%" as a wildcard in your search. For further
information regarding the use of this WHOIS server, please
type: help

--------------------------

No Match
I am sorry I couldnt really help!

Answer 9

I have found the following nwebsite very useful for WHOIS lookups, DNS lookups, and reverse DNS lookups. Check it out:

http://www.dnsstuff.com/

Answer 10

whois is great aol explorer will take you there from a drop down menu under security