Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

Knowbot Information Service
     
         (KIS) Also known as
        netaddress.  The Knowbot Information Service (KIS) provides a
        uniform user interface to a variety of {remote directory
        service}s such as {whois}, {finger}, {X.500}, {MCIMail}.  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
        {electronic mail} and {telnet}.  Another KIS interface
        imitates the Berkeley {whois} command.
     
        KIS consists of two distinct types of modules which 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 Knowbots or by actual movement of Knowbots.
     
        There are electronic mail interfaces for KIS at the hosts
        cnri.reston.va.us and sol.bucknell.edu.  Send a message
        containing just the word "man" to  or
        .  Telnet: info.cnri.reston.va.us
        port 185.