RE: [idn] Where will we see bad domain names?

[Jonathan Rosenne <rosenne@qsm.co.il>]

For example, when I type a name, or even cut and paste, I have no control over
the encoding. Since the UCS offers alternative equivalent encodings, they must
be normalized before they are used.

Jony

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-idn@ops.ietf.org [mailto:owner-idn@ops.ietf.org]On Behalf
> Of D. J. Bernstein c/o James Seng
> Sent: Monday, January 08, 2001 12:29 AM
> To: idn@ops.ietf.org
> Subject: [idn] Where will we see bad domain names?
>
>
> Why do we need name preparation in applications?
>
> I'm not saying the nameprep work is useless. We should provide a program
> to detect bad names: names with confusing characters, or with uppercase
> characters, or that aren't KC-normalized. Registries will then prohibit
> bad names.
>
> But what will go wrong if these rules are hidden from applications? Why
> should a typical application worry about bad names? Good names will be
> accurately copied by cut-and-paste. When will bad names show up?
>
> Mark Davis writes:
> > The chances that the average application would, by chance, duplicate
> > the same normalization is minimal.
>
> You're saying that a user will see a good name on paper, type it into
> his computer in his favorite way, and end up with a bad name that looks
> the same.
>
> Can you please give some real examples? What were the good names? What
> keyboard-interface software was involved? What did the user type? Why
> didn't the user end up with good names? Was it a bug in the software?
>
> Perhaps there's a need for a tool that fixes bad Chinese domain names.
> However, I don't see why this conversion should be stuck into every
> piece of software that reads domain names from configuration files.
>
> ---Dan
>
> P.S. RFC 1034 says ``When you receive a domain name or label, you should
> preserve its case.'' Are we going to scrap this part of RFC 1034, and
> encourage clients to fold case for ASCII characters? Or are we going to
> say that the case of ASCII characters should be preserved?
>
> Of course, for interoperability, DNS software and mail software and so
> on will continue _comparing_ ASCII characters without regard to case.
>