Hi!
I have noticed that on my domain when i run whois <domain> it returns a lot of information such as registrar name, abuse contact, creation date… even though i paid extra for “whois privacy.” Then i found that for other domains whois returns a paltry amount of information such as “Malformed request.” or just repeats the domain name and has “status: UNASSIGNABLE”. specifically, one .fail domain and one .it domain. HOWEVER, those minimal whois records for the .it and .fail domains still have valid PTR entries that i can lookup publicly online.
HERE IS THE QUESTION: i want to buy a domain for the sole purpose of having a single A record that points to a corresponding PTR record on the VPS provider. however, i prefer to have the whois record be as minimal as the 2 examples i gave above. how are those whois entries so sparse?
I am doing all this with the goal of hosting a tor exit node. any help is greatly appreciated! have a lovely day!
You must log in or # to comment.
The information returned by whois depends on the registry. For example, most registries for European TLDs basically just show whether the domain is registered (I say “most” because I’m not sure whether it’s actually all or if there are exceptions, but I know .de is like this). In that case, there aren’t even “whois privacy” services available from registrars. For TLDs from other countries or gTLDs, this might vary.
In either case, do note what the other comment says. Whois is not the only way to identify who runs a service.
it returns a lot of information such as registrar name, abuse contact, creation date… even though i paid extra for “whois privacy.”
If you didn’t pay for whois privacy, it would most likely return your actual name, email address, phone number, and home address instead. “Whois privacy” just means your registrar inserts their information into these fields instead, and forwards any mail they might get to you.
Latest changes in the EU are part of the NIS-2 directive. My private German domains don’t show a lot of detail and it’s been like that for many years.
This is something your domain provider has to offer to you. It is usually a paid service. Not all TLDs allow it though - so depending on your domain ending you might be out of luck. I don’t know your intentions, but if you want to evade prosecution because of the traffic going through your TOR node this will not work. Even with whois privacy enabled your provider must disclose your identity to prosecution. Even if they weren’t the A record (IP address) of your domain would link the domain to your server and would open another way to identify you through your hosting provider or ISP.
Cloudflare is free, I thought it was free everywhere.
I have my domains through cloudflare, and they are basically empty:
Domain name: xxxx.uk Data validation: Nominet was not able to match the registrant's name and/or address against a 3rd party source on 06-Jun-2023 Registrar: Cloudflare, Inc. [Tag = CLOUDFLARE] URL: https://cloudflare.com/ Relevant dates: Registered on: 06-Jun-2023 Expiry date: 06-Jun-2026 Last updated: 07-May-2025 Registration status: Registered until expiry date. Name servers: paul.ns.cloudflare.com tia.ns.cloudflare.com Disclaimer Domain name: xxxx.uk Data validation: Nominet was not able to match the registrant's name and/or address against a 3rd party source on 06-Jun-2023 Registrar: Cloudflare, Inc. [Tag = CLOUDFLARE] URL: https://cloudflare.com/ Relevant dates: Registered on: 06-Jun-2023 Expiry date: 06-Jun-2026 Last updated: 07-May-2025 Registration status: Registered until expiry date. Name servers: paul.ns.cloudflare.com tia.ns.cloudflare.com+1 for Cloudflare domains. I’ve got all my domains registered with them, can confirm that there are no identifiable details in the whois table for any of my domains.
