Editing Knowbot Information Service

{{refimprove|date=December 2017}}

The '''Knowbot Information Service''' ('''KIS'''), also known as '''netaddress''', is an Internet user [[search engine]] that debuted in December 1989. Although it searched users, not content, it could be argued to be the first [[search engine]] 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]], [[finger protocol|finger]], [[X.500]], and [[MCI Mail]]. 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]] and [[telnet]]. 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 [[knowbot]]s 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

[[Category:Internet Protocol based network software]]
[[Category:1989 software]]
[[Category:Internet search engines]]
[[Category:History of the Internet]]


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