Re: [idn] Debunking the ACE myth

[Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>]

> The ACE myth is that we can safely start using ACE IDNs before all the
> browsers, mail clients, etc. have been modified.

I don't think anyone has claimed that it's perfectly safe to do so -
only that there's less risk of leakage of native IDNs into environments
than can only deal with ASCII if we don't *deliberately* introduce 
native IDNs into protocols that were specified to deal with ASCII names.

> Here's a counterexample, elaborating on David Conrad's messages. This is
> an ACE failure involving a hypothetical ACE IDN, a hypothetical ACE
> browser, a real mail client under a real UTF-8 xterm, and a real MTA.

Your example assumes that the browser will decode the ACE in the
mailto: URL when copying the URL to the paste buffer, when in fact it's 
much safer to leave it as ACE.  I won't claim that the browser vendor
will always do the right thing (there are plenty of counterexamples
to that idea)  but at least it is possible for them to do something 
sensible.

Keith