Q3: What characters should be allowed in a revised IDNA2008 specification?

Harald Alvestrand harald at alvestrand.no
Thu Apr 2 19:44:50 CEST 2009


I agree with Paul's points below. Let's bite the bullet and say "they 
are invalid under IDNA2008".

Paul Hoffman wrote:
> At 12:14 PM -0400 3/31/09, Vint Cerf wrote:
>   
>> Does the working group agree that the more restricted set of the 
>> current IDNA2008 Tables document should apply once IDNA2008 is 
>> adopted?
>>     
>
> Yes.
>
>   
>> What should be done about registrations that use characters 
>> that would not be allowed under IDNA2008?
>>     
>
> Nothing. They will naturally wither as IDNA2008 is adopted by software, in the same way that older protocols wither and better ones are deployed.
>
>   
>> Should there be a 
>> transitional period of finite duration after which these registrations 
>> will become invalid?
>>     
>
> No. They will *always* be valid under the old protocol, and they will *never* be valid under the new protocol. There is no reason to blur this distinction.
>
>   
>> Should they be grandfathered somehow?
>>     
>
> No.
>
>   
>> If we 
>> believe all future registrations should be restricted, how would such 
>> grandfathered registrations be found if the IDNA2008 rules would 
>> reject lookups of the disallowed characters?
>>     
>
> They would be found if we promoted confusion, so let's not.
>
>   
>> A two-lookup scheme might solve this problem:
>>
>> 1. lookup according to IDNA2008 rules (if disallowed characters are 
>> present, go to step 2); if domain name record is found, return the 
>> information. If not, go to step 2
>> 2. lookup according to IDNA2003 rules (permitting a broader range of 
>> characters in the lookup process). If domain record is found, return 
>> it, if not return "no such domain name"
>>     
>
> Of course. And, as others have pointed out, this scheme creates more problems.
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>   



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