Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) for digital forensic investigators

This paper describes the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) with a focus on relevance to digital forensic investigators. RDAP was developed as the successor to the aging WHOIS system and is intended to eventually replace WHOIS as the authoritative source for registration information on IP addresses, Domain Names, Autonomous Systems, and more. RDAP uses a RESTful interface over HTTP and introduces a number of new features related to security, internationalization, and standardized query/response definitions. It is important for digital forensic investigators to become familiar with RDAP as it will play an increasingly important role in Internet investigations requiring the search and collection of registration data as evidence.