Prompt

Conduct open source intelligence data collection about cityinthe.cloud. Answer the following questions as they relate to the cityinthe.cloud domain.

Walk-Through

This challenge involves conducting a WHOIS query on a domain name. WHOIS is a protocol for querying databases that store information about Internet resources and domain names.

A domain name is a human-readable address that identifies resources on the Internet. Instead of the numerical IP addresses (e.g. 8.8.8.8) that computers use, domain names (e.g. google.com) provide an easier way for humans to access the Internet.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of domain names and the DNS system, the following articles may be helpful to read before preceding with the challenge:

Wikipedia Article

Cloudflare Blog Post

Initial Steps

To solve this challenge, you can either use an executable tool (such as the standard whois command-line tool found on *nix systems) or you can use an browser-based DNS lookup tool such as ICANN’s registration lookup tool.

⚠️

Please note that any time you rely on online resources, you should either obtain your information from an authoritative source or check your information against multiple reputable sources. This will help you minimize the risk that you mistakenly obtain incorrect information.

The cityinthe.cloud domain name can be broken down into two components:

cityinthe - The second-level domain

.cloud - The top-level domain

💡

The precedence of domain names goes from right to left.

A quick search of the .cloud TLD will pull up the Wikipedia article for the .cloud TLD, which will help provide key information to solving this challenge.

The Wikipedia article for the .cloud TLD

This research shows that the .cloud TLD is delegated by ICANN and managed by Aruba S.p.A., which makes these two organizations authoritative sources regarding the .cloud TLD.

With this information, we can query ICANN’s registration lookup tool knowing that the results that it produces should be authoritative and preference over results from other third-party sources.

The results from this query (below) provide enough information to solve all the questions posed in this challenge.

The results of the cityinthe.cloud query on the ICANN lookup tool

Questions

Who is the registrar of this domain?

See the “Registrar Information” section from the ICANN lookup results

On what day was this domain first registered?

See the “Created” field from the ICANN lookup results

What is this domain's registry domain ID?

See the “Registry Domain ID” field from the ICANN lookup results

What is the Top-Level Domain (TLD) of this domain?

See the description of how the domain name can be broken down

What organization manages the TLD used by cityinthe.cloud?

See the research about the TLD.