draft-phillips-langtags-04 /2.4.2 Maintaining private-use

Mark Davis mark.davis at jtcsv.com
Sat Jul 3 00:17:27 CEST 2004


I see no essential difference between the following in terms of private use
behavior, where the first 2 are permitted now in RFC 3066, and the third
would be permitted under draft-04.

en-QM
x-en-texsecretswitch
en-x-texsecretswitch

I think your mention of security is a red herring here. If you interpret
private use codes -- ANY of the above -- then you had better have
established a private agreement for their use. And you had better either
carefully filter everything that comes from a different source, or have
harmless behavior in case you get something from the outside the private
agreement. Thus if Joe does something dumb like interpret *any* of the above
as instructions to reformat a hard drive, then Joe has a really bad design.
But Joe could have done that bad design with either of the first 2 with the
current RFC 3066 also. I don't see that 3066bis makes any essential
difference in security here.

That being said, we could certainly beef up the cautions about any private
use in 3066bis, which already has more cautions than what was in 3066, and
add a note referencing that in the Security section.

Μаrk
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tex Texin" <tex at xencraft.com>
To: "Mark Davis" <mark.davis at jtcsv.com>
Cc: "Doug Ewell" <dewell at adelphia.net>; <ietf-languages at alvestrand.no>
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 12:07
Subject: Re: draft-phillips-langtags-04 /2.4.2 Maintaining private-use


> Thanks Mark, I am happy to be corrected if I misunderstood.
>
> However, the private use subtags are what I was refering to:
> "x" 1*("-" (1*15alphanum))
>
> And whereas you can use qaa and QM today, qaa is not likely because using
a
> private primary language means giving up any language support you might
have
> with integrated software.
> QM is possible but potentially will conflict with some other assignment of
> semantics to it by other software.
>
> However, I can probably append x-texsecretswitch to existing tags, get the
> expected language support plus use it to trigger specialized behavior in
just
> my programs (including backdoors and potential security risks) and not
conflict
> with anyone elses private codes, except where appending them exceeds the
> maximum length for a tag.
>
> I don't see why these subtags are needed or why software should attempt to
> carry and maintain them.
> Why not just leave the standard with the existing private use codes as
good
> enough?
>
> If they are not getting a lot of use today why extend them?
>
> tex
>
> Mark Davis wrote:
> >
> > That is incorrect. The current private use ISO 639 and ISO 3166 codes
are
> > valid codes in their respective standards. So I can in the current RFC
3066
> > produce codes like:
> >
> > en-QM (English with a private use region)
> > qaa-US (Private use language with US region)
> >
> > I'm sorry that I haven't had a chance to respond to a number of the
comments
> > so far. Addison and I discussed them before he flew off to Russia, so I
will
> > try to answer them for the both of us in his absence, after the holiday
> > weekend. However, I find that quite a few of them are on the order of
the
> > comment below; not recognizing that the current draft in many cases
simply
> > documents and makes more rigorous a pre-existing capability (from the
> > current 3066).
> >
> > Îoаrk
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Tex Texin" <tex at xencraft.com>
> > To: "Doug Ewell" <dewell at adelphia.net>
> > Cc: <ietf-languages at alvestrand.no>
> > Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 11:01
> > Subject: Re: draft-phillips-langtags-04 /2.4.2 Maintaining private-use
> >
> > > Doug,
> > >
> > > In the current situation only the entire tag is private. This limits
its
> > > usefulness since if you use a completely proprietary tag no other
software
> > will
> > > do anything useful with it.
> > >
> > > The proposal though is to allow amending of supported tags with
private
> > > add-ons. This creates an expectation that the tag will be generally
> > supported
> > > and carry around the add-on with it. I suspect it will be used not
only by
> > > private agreement for interchange with others, but as note-to-self in
some
> > > applications. (e.g. Turn on this feature or that.)
> > >
> > > So it may be more generally used and therefore be a more significant
> > issue. And
> > > yet I am unclear as to the demand or need for this.
> > >
> > > tex
> > >
> > >
> > > Doug Ewell wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Tex Texin <tex at xencraft dot com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Private use is a BAD thing where there are no agreements. Perhaps
the
> > > > > caution against them should be more strongly stated.
> > > >
> > > > I repeat what I said earlier this week:  Is it genuinely a problem,
in
> > > > the real world, that people are using private-use codes or tags
where
> > > > there is no agreement, leaving users clueless as to what they mean?
> > > >
> > > > Can anyone cite instances where this was an actual problem?
> > > >
> > > > Failing that, is the strength of the caution really a significant
issue?
> > > >
> > > > -Doug Ewell
> > > >  Fullerton, California
> > > >  http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Ietf-languages mailing list
> > > > Ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
> > > > http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages
> > >
> > > --
> > > -------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Tex Texin   cell: +1 781 789 1898   mailto:Tex at XenCraft.com
> > > Xen Master                          http://www.i18nGuy.com
> > >
> > > XenCraft             http://www.XenCraft.com
> > > Making e-Business Work Around the World
> > > -------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Ietf-languages mailing list
> > > Ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
> > > http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages
> > >
>
> -- 
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> Tex Texin   cell: +1 781 789 1898   mailto:Tex at XenCraft.com
> Xen Master                          http://www.i18nGuy.com
>
> XenCraft             http://www.XenCraft.com
> Making e-Business Work Around the World
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
>



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