Wrong port. The whois.internic.net server runs on port 43 now, and as far as I know it has for a while.
It still works for me:
$ telnet whois.internic.net 43 Trying 198.41.0.6... Connected to rs.internic.net. Escape character is '^]'. slashdot.org Access to Network Solutions' WHOIS information is
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong port. The whois.internic.net server runs on port 43 now, and as far as I know it has for a while.
It still works for me:
$ telnet whois.internic.net 43
Trying 198.41.0.6...
Connected to rs.internic.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
slashdot.org
Access to Network Solutions' WHOIS information is
....
etc