Tony, The RWHois work that Mark and I have developed will do bit level reduction of a query. This will work in the CIDR environment. It also addresses the delagation needs of the current Internet environment. Below is the debug on the RWhois server trying to find an aggregate. If you want more information let us know .... we even have slides explaining the protocol. Scott %RWhois (by Network Solutions) V-B0.2 slam.internic.net 193.1.1.0 run_search: trying template |non-referral| file |data/whois| run_search looking for |193.1.1.0| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.1.1.0| run_search: trying template |non-referral| file |data/whois| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.1.1.0| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.1.1.0/24| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.1.0.0/23| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.1.0.0/22| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.1.0.0/21| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.1.0.0/20| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.1.0.0/19| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.1.0.0/18| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.1.0.0/17| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.1.0.0/16| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.0.0.0/15| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.0.0.0/14| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.0.0.0/13| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.0.0.0/12| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.0.0.0/11| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.0.0.0/10| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.0.0.0/9| run_search: trying template |referral| file |data/referral/referral| run_search looking for |33QWQX193.0.0.0/8| %whois.ripe.net:43