Then use a "real" directory system,  like the UDD. It's neither X.500 nor
Standard in any way,  but it exists and works, today.  It's not very well
documented  but then  it's not  the  only thing  which is  not very  well
documented either. There have already  been several changes to the SIGNUP
FILE contents and exact format since /WHOIS was written, fortunately none
of them happened to create any problem  for /WHOIS but it should be clear
that SIGNUP FILE was  never meant to be used as  a directory service, and
its  format  can  change  at   any  time  for  performance  or  usability
considerations.
 
  Eric