On: Just type `whois Microsoft.com` in your shell

[mappu]

OK. Next question - why does the verisign whois server know about arbitarily nested subdomains, instead of only top-level registrations?

[mattzito → mappu]

Take a look at my response upthread - basically, they're not sub domains, they're arbitrarily registered name server entries to provide glue to other lookups. The Whois record is just the side effect