NS validation?

[Stephane Bortzmeyer]

On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 07:32:03AM -0600,
 Frank Bulk <frnkblk at iname.com> wrote 
 a message of 54 lines which said:

> Please forgive me for my naivety, but since when did a host name
> have a WHOIS record?

In the registry of .net/.com, many, many years.

% whois -h whois.verisign-grs.com ns4.generic-nic.net 

Whois Server Version 2.0

...

   Server Name: NS4.GENERIC-NIC.NET
   IP Address: 192.134.7.248
   Registrar: GANDI SAS