---In message <x7helfiy0i.fsf@capsicum.wsrcc.com>

>My first guess was that someone is pulling a joke on you.  There is no
>US state by the name "wanderer".  However doing a quick "dig
>wanderer.us any" did bring up that zone.  I guess the *.biz folks that
>the *.us zone was given away to have decided to turn it into another
>flat mess like *.com .  Sad.
>
>And no, there is no gandalf.wanderer.us in that zone. Yet.

 It's a tale of woe in the longer tale of woe associated with TLDs.  Long
ago, isi.edu used to "run" the .us domain.  The U.S. Dept. of Commerce
decided to give .us to Verisign (nee Network Solutions, Inc.)  to run
aound 28 Nov 2000.  So what did Verisign do with it?  Nothing.  There
wasn't even a working whois server for .us for over a year.  These are
some interesting archived Usenet posts:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=3A422BFA.8503AA29%40verizon.com&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26scoring%3Dd%26q%3Dwhois.isi.edu%2Bcommerce

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=u3qojq23tt2716%40corp.supernews.com&rnum=24&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D.us%2Bwhois%2Bnetwork%2Bsolutions%2Bisi%26hl%3Den%26scoring%3Dd%26start%3D20%26sa%3DN


 Well, apparently after over a year of languishing in the hands of
Verisign, the TLD was sold to "Neustar." See http://www.nic.us/ for
current information.  The good news is that there is now a working whois
server. (whois.nic.us) The bad news is that (IMO) Neustar is pimping the
domain out and destroying whatever use it may have had.

  Once NSI and other registrars started "pushing" .net and .org, the TLDs
became irrelevant. Of course, things deteriorated even more as the
entities that held authority over domain disputes upheld the idea that,
for example, vw.net should be taken away from an ISP and given to the
German automobile maker, Volkswagon.  This effectively negated the
requirement that .net be reserved for use by Network service providers.
(Just as .org should be non-profits, and .com be for-profit companies.)

 Anyway, knowing how this has gone, if i could rewind the clock to 1993 or
so, i'd say let's just dump all of the TLDs. They're useless now, except
for generating more money for registrars, as businesses with deep pockets
register (and litigate to register) "companyname.*" in order to "protect
their copyright."

 --johan