Re: [idn] Which names are valid?

["Eric A. Hall" <ehall@ehsco.com>]

Erik Nordmark wrote:

> So should we say something specific (e.g. as part of the scope
> in the requirements document) about domain names with
> host name components or substrings?

I think that this question needs to be answered by management.

It would be nice to drop the hostname rules, but at the same time, there
are many many techno-political issues in doing so. The security issues are
just convoluted, for example, as are the intellectual property issues
faced by ICANN and the registrars/registries.

One quick example: RFC1035 allows a period in the middle of a label by
escaping it, and the only reason we don't have www/.aol.com issues now is
because the hostname rules prevent www/.aol from being registered as a
domain. Many similar shenanigans will be possible with IDN.

This kind of situation can go away, but I don't think its in the IDN WG
scope to make that call. We should only be worrying about the technology
issues, and leave policy to the policy makers.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/